The Wheat Paradox: Record Harvest, Provincial Imports, and a Support Price Farmers Say Never Covered Its Costs

Overview

Pakistan's official data says the 2025-26 wheat crop was a good one: output rose 4.3 percent to 29.61 million tonnes. Yet Punjab bought a million tonnes of wheat back from the federal reserve at 19 percent above the price it had set for farmers, then sold it on at a loss to hold down flour prices. Sindh's cabinet approved importing five million tons despite a harvest 39 percent above the year before. And Pakistan Kissan Ittehad, the farmers' lobby, is warning that the 2026-27 crop could shrink by roughly 3 million tonnes unless the government moves off the Rs3,500 support price by the end of August.

This commentary traces those four facts back to a single change: an IMF-linked shift from a fixed minimum support price to an "indicative" rate, paired with two provincial procurement mechanisms, a private aggregator model in Punjab and a smallholder card-linked scheme in Sindh, that each captured under 20 percent of their targets. The result was a record harvest that mostly bypassed public reserves, leaving both provinces buying wheat back at a premium once shortfalls became apparent.