On 11th July 2026, the Federal Minister of National Food Security, Rana Tanveer Hussain, chaired the 9th Wheat Board meeting and concluded that the “wheat production target has been achieved and the country has sufficient wheat reserves.”
The official presser also noted ‘unanimous’ agreement among the provincial representatives about the wheat stocks, with there being ‘no shortage of wheat anywhere in the country’.
But just two weeks later, another supposedly ‘high-level’ meeting of the same Wheat Board concluded that the ‘collective demand of the provinces exceeded the available stocks’ and that the ‘import of 1 million tons of wheat was being explored ‘.
Now either someone left out some zeroes during the first meeting, or we discovered a new variety of wheat that disappears between two meetings. Or maybe the systems we use to evaluate the stocks of our most strategic commodity are just as good as the people sitting over them. In any case, as it turns out, we do need more Wheat.
As October sets in and farmers prepare to sow the next Wheat crop, we find ourselves asking the same questions all over again. Why does the eighth-largest wheat producer in the world have to keep importing wheat? And, most importantly, how long will the farmers keep paying for these blunders?
Why Imports?
Nobody knows for sure. Govt Wheat production estimates fall all over the place. Pakistan has been importing wheat every few years since 2019, but the more we look at the numbers, the more it becomes clear that these decisions have mostly been made without solid grounds.
The government uses several sources to estimate wheat production, including provincial Crop Reporting Services, SUPARCO, the Land Information and Management System, and FAO, but national-level planning mostly relies on provincial Crop Reporting Services data.
For the current 2025-26 crop, the Federal Committee on Agriculture initially set a production target of 29.68 million tons from 9.65 million hectares, and the Economic Survey put the production estimate at 29.61 million tons from 9.48 million hectares, so technically we achieved the target or came close to it.
But on the other hand, using satellite-based estimates, SUPARCO had put this year’s production at just 27.48 million tons from 8.84 million hectares. That is about 2.1 million tons lower than the Economic Survey estimate and around 640,000 hectares lower in cultivated area.
Even if we acknowledge that SUPARCO’s satellite-based estimate is not yet fully field-validated, the gap with the official estimate is simply too large to ignore. A difference of more than 2 million tons is large enough to materially affect decisions on imports, reserves and overall wheat availability.
“Government’s Crop Reporting Service relies on area frame sampling method for production estimates but shrinking farm sizes and shifting agriculture realities around inputs and mechanisation have significantly reduced the accuracy and reliability of CRS figures”, said Khalid Saeed Watto, agriculture development professional talking to ProPakistani
The consumption-side estimates have a similar problem. A publicly reported government assessment put the Wheat demand for the period till April 2027 at 34.33 million tons, of which 30.83 million tons was for human consumption, 1.5 million tons for feed and seed, and 2.0 million tons for strategic reserves.
The human consumption estimate is calculated based on a total population of 268 million and an average per capita consumption of 115 kg per annum (includes both commercial and household).
But the latest Household Integrated Economic Survey notes a 5.57 percent reduction in annual per capita Wheat consumption in rural and urban households, falling from 84 kg in 2018-19 to 79 kg in 2024-2025.
HEIS figures don’t include commercial and industrial use, but still, that reduction should have been reflected in the government’s own demand estimates as well, which have been using the figure of 115kg per annum for several years now.
Years of Failed Policies
The current crisis traces its roots to the Rs. 300 billion wheat scandal of 2023–24, when 3.59 million tons were imported under the caretaker government based on “completely unreliable” stock and demand data, alongside the “intentional delay in public procurement to favour the private sector,” according to the Auditor General of Pakistan.
This left the market with excessive stocks, followed by a larger-than-expected domestic harvest. But instead of honouring the announced price of Rs. 3,900 per maund, the Punjab government abruptly cut large-scale procurement in 2024, forcing farmers to sell wheat for around Rs. 3,000 per maund or lower and incur significant losses.
Farmers paid the price, while the PML-N-led Punjab government took the political heat. Inquiry committees were formed, and bureaucrats shuffled, but the matter was eventually buried to protect influential officials and the caretaker government, which had closer ties to the establishment.
These failures became the justification for subsequent “deregulation.” Government procurement was undeniably inefficient, leaving behind a circular debt-like burden exceeding Rs. 680 billion. But the government withdrew hastily without ensuring accountability for the previous crisis or fixing the systems used to estimate wheat stocks and demand.
Last year, the government introduced Electronic Warehouse Receipts, allowing farmers to store wheat in approved warehouses for four months and use electronic receipts to secure bank loans. In theory, this addressed farmers’ cash flow problem without forcing them to sell their wheat.
But the scheme launched too late and without adequate infrastructure. Meanwhile, the government’s supposed “free market” policy also brought unprecedented police action against private wheat stocks and crop movement, including reports of action against farmers storing their own wheat, nothing less than tragic in an agricultural country.
It also brings market uncertainty, leading to less investment by the companies for the transition towards a free market.
This year, Punjab tried another experiment, aiming to build strategic reserves of around three million tons through indirect procurement. It selected 11 companies and offered bank-financing assistance, a 70 percent subsidy on financing mark-up, free access to Food Department storage and government personnel.
Yet the program failed as financing negotiations between banks and most selected companies hit roadblocks.
Shifting harvesting patterns and climate change have added further complications. Mechanisation has shortened the harvesting window, causing large quantities of wheat to reach markets simultaneously and pushing prices down, as happened this year.
But a short-term influx does not necessarily indicate higher overall production. Market sources reported lower yields in several districts than last year; as this became apparent, prices rose across Punjab, exposing another flaw in the procurement system.
The government expected companies to buy at a benchmark of Rs. 3,500 per maund, but the arrangement’s pricing and financing terms left questions about their incentive to procure when market prices moved above or below that level.
Easy to Sell the Farm Vote
One of the reasons we see governments making abrupt import decisions every few years, despite not having the right data picture, is fear and panic. 2022 Economic Survey notes that wheat is a strategic crop and any shortfall in its production can create an awkward situation leading to political uncertainty.
In Pakistan, any political uncertainty translates to economic uncertainty in no time and is especially terrible for a country that is always looking for the next IMF grant and has to show some stability to its lenders.
So it makes sense why successive governments always feel like it’s better to import and have more wheat even if it causes a market glut and hurts the farmers, instead of having wheat shortages and sky-high flour prices, which will cause countrywide panic. But I think there’s one more aspect of it which makes it somewhat more sinister than simple strategic decision-making.
I think our successive political governments have learnt that it’s significantly easier to sell out the farm vote in this country than that of urban consumers because the rural communities are easier to persuade and bring back when it’s election time, as most of them still vote based on caste and what their elders say.
Options
The government needs to establish a credible wheat production estimation system using a framework based on all available methods and investigate major discrepancies before making import decisions. It should publish quarterly balance sheets of available wheat stocks and update wheat demand using household surveys and commercial trends instead of relying on the long-standing 115 kg per capita benchmark.
There is also a need for affordable crop insurance that shares the risk of climate-related losses and sharp harvest-time price declines between farmers, insurers and the government, and to expand EWR financing infrastructure.
Some of these measures are already underway, but the point is that they should have been in place before pulling the rug out from under farmers suddenly, leaving them to bear the cost of a transition they neither designed nor had the means to survive.
The post Govt Wheat Policy Has Failed Again appeared first on ProPakistani.