Pakistan's sesame export to China witnessed a 46 percent increase in the first half of this year. A group of Chinese and Pakistani sesame scientists have selected and exchanged seeds for crop breeding, future cooperation on sesame planting and harvesting is in the pipeline under the framework of CPEC. 

"Sesame seeds selected by Ayub Agriculture Research Institute (AARI) in Faisalabad will be tested in Hainan, China in November. Last month, researchers and farmers from Pakistan detailed the outlook of Pakistan's sesame industry during an online seminar hosted by China Machinery Engineering Corporation and AARI. Our institute is confident in finding solutions in new sesame varieties breeding, cultivation technology research and lab-to-market transformation for our 'iron brother'," Xu Guizhen, director of Sesame Research Office, Hebei Academy of Agriculture and Forestry Science, told media. 

Sesame has a long planting history in Pakistan. The crop is not hard to grow, requires not much water and fertilizer, yet farmers seem to be hesitant about planting sesame. 

"The biggest difficulty is finding laborers. Harvesting and planting has to be done by hand here. If farmers can't find skillful laborers to harvest the crop, matured sesame seeds will fall off. This year, my sesame seeds have almost all fallen off," Chaudhary Abdul Razzaq, a Pakistani sesame farmer told media, "Middle men find labors for us, and they take quite a large amount of shares from the paychecks that we send."