Beneath the scorching sun in Pakistan’s southern mango belt, labourers perch on tree branches, swiftly picking ripe mangoes and tossing them into sacks held open by farmhands below.

But despite the peak harvest season, significantly fewer mangoes will reach overseas markets this year. Pakistan’s export-driven agriculture sector has been caught in the fallout from the Middle East conflict, a crisis in which Islamabad has played a mediating role. Although Pakistan announced an initial agreement between the warring parties this week, the development has come too late to benefit the current mango season, which began in June in Sindh province.