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Sahiwal

Farmers on the Street

A delay in purchasing wheat has caused a crash in the market because the local buyers are paying about Rs.3200.00 per 40 kg, and farmers are suffering heavily.

By Col. (R) Muhammad Hanif | June 2024


According to the Dawn newspaper dated 30 April 2024, led by Pakistan Kissan Ittehad, farmers from across the Punjab province gathered near the Punjab Assembly building in Lahore and protested against the government’s inordinate delay in purchasing wheat grain at the wheat support price and its decision to reduce the Punjab province procurement quota from over 4 million tonnes to 2.3 million tonnes.

To quell the farmer’s protests, a heavy contingent of Punjab police, who had blocked the road leading to the Punjab Assembly building by placing containers, arrested about 250 protesting farmers, as Pakistan Kissan Ittehad General Secretary Mian Umair Masood had claimed. However, as per Police sources, 46 protesters were taken into custody.

The Punjab province procures over 4 million tonnes of wheat every season from the farmers to meet its yearly requirements. This intervention in the market prevents hoarding, ensures price stability, and maintains the supply chain. The support price of wheat announced yearly by the Punjab government is meant to compensate the farmers for the high prices of fertilizers, pesticides, petrol/gas, and electricity.

This year (2024), the Punjab government has decided to purchase only 2 million tonnes of wheat from the farmers, claiming the government had a carryover stock of 2.3 million tonnes from the previous year (2023). Although the Punjab government has announced the wheat support price of RS.3900.00 per 40 Kg, which also sets the tone of the market price, a delay in the purchase of wheat has caused a crash in the wheat market because the local buyers of wheat are paying about Rs.3200.00 per 40 kg and farmers are suffering heavily.

As per Al Jazeera News, dated 3 May 2024, the above-stated situation has arisen because the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), the ruling coalition at the time, had decided to allow the private sector to import wheat in July 2023. According to the figures from the Ministry of National Food Security and Research, as quoted by Al Jazeera, between September 2023 and March 2024, more than 3.5 million tonnes of wheat were imported into Pakistan from the international market, where prices were much lower. The inquiry conducted by the federal government has also confirmed that this quantity of wheat was imported in the aforementioned months, despite the forecast of a bumper wheat harvest in April/May 2024.

The Pakistan Kissan Ittehad General Secretary, Mian Umair Masood, said if the Punjab government does not purchase the farmers’ wheat immediately as per the Punjab province’s quota of 4 million tonnes at the announced support price of Rs 3900.00 per 40 kg, the farmers were planning to block highways across the province with the help of their families and livestock, which would be brought to roads. The farmers have also demanded punishment for those responsible for importing the wheat at the wrong time.

The Punjab province is confronted with the above-stated situation of farmers’ unrest at a time when Pakistan’s foreign and domestic debt-burdened economy is already facing difficulties for its revival, and inflation in Pakistan has gone too high for common citizens, including the farmers with smaller holdings, to cope with. For the last few years, the prices of electricity, gas, petrol, fertilizer, and pesticides have gone too high for the farmers. Farmers from all over Pakistan, especially the Punjab farmers, have been protesting against these high prices and demanded the support price for wheat and other major crops.


To address the above-discussed situation, since agriculture is a significant sector of Pakistan’s economy, Pakistan ranks 8th globally in farm output, and it contributes 23 percent to Pakistan’s GDP, 37 percent to employment generation, and Punjab province contributes a significant share by producing the country’s 68 percent food grains and the major portion of cotton and rice, it is essential that the government seriously considers Punjab farmers’ demand and starts purchasing wheat at the support price of Rs. 3900.00 per 40 kg to satisfy the farmers. Otherwise, the farmers will get discouraged from growing wheat next year and resort to further protests.

The federal government should ensure that farmers have access to cheaper fertilizers, pesticides, and high-quality seeds.

Given Pakistan’s economic difficulties, although it is not easy for the sitting federal and provincial governments to provide high support prices of crops and subsidies to the farmers in electricity, gas, petrol, fertilizers, pesticides, and high-quality seeds, the government must assist the farmers by all possible means to avoid future wider protests by the farmers in Punjab and other provinces. The following measures are suggested to help the farmers enhance their productive capacity.

Instead of giving substantial subsidies, the government should reduce electricity costs by avoiding line losses by improving transmission lines and controlling electricity theft. The ongoing hydroelectricity-producing projects should be completed on time. The government should also hold a sustained dialogue with the US government to get a waiver for completing the Pakistani part of the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline. The petrol and diesel prices should be kept in line with the world market.

Moreover, the federal government should ensure that cheaper fertilizers, pesticides, and high-quality seeds are provided to farmers by providing subsidized electricity/gas to the industry to reduce the cost of production of fertilizers. To ensure that fertilizers are sold at the correct/reduced price, the government should also crack down on black marketers to stop them from hoarding fertilizers and following wrong market practices to earn more profits.

The above-suggested measures are vital to keeping the farmers encouraged to continue to work hard to enhance the crop yields to ensure food security, reduce the import of farm products, and increase the export of agriculture-related goods to earn valuable foreign exchange required to revive Pakistan’s economy and put it on the path to progress. Hence, to achieve this objective, the successive Pakistani governments should make a comprehensive yearly agriculture policy and implement it resolutely.

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