Why Pakis are crying for Rotis : wheat pricing expose deep policy incoherence
Pakistan’s wheat market today resembles a cart with two oxen pulling in opposite directions.
On one side stands the International Monetary Fund, holding the reins of fiscal discipline, insisting that Pakistan let the market speak for itself.
On the other side, powerful domestic political forces cling to a decades-old system of minimum support prices and state procurement, hoping to keep farmers afloat through yet another painful harvest season.
The result is not forward movement, but dust, noise, and a confused public wondering whether anyone at the wheel knows where they are headed.
The government’s decision to fix a minimum support price of PKR 3,500 (approximately $12.4) per 40kg for the next harvest exposes this deep policy incoherence.
Only recently, Islamabad pledged to scrap precisely this sort of intervention to fulfil a key benchmark in the IMF programme.
The minimum support price was supposed to fade into history, replaced by a gleaming, liberalised market where buyers and sellers finally meet on equal terms. Yet like a ghost that refuses to leave, the policy has returned to haunt the fields.
This contradiction is not just a technical quibble. It strikes at the heart of Pakistan’s agricultural governance.
If public procurement is being phased out, who exactly will buy wheat at the newly fixed price? Farmers are not irrational; they will only sell to someone who honours that promised safety net.
The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has raised this question sharply and publicly, but the government remains evasive, offering vague assurances and little clarity.
It is as though policymakers declared a new direction, then quietly turned the signpost around when no one was looking.
Caught in this tug of war are Pakistan’s wheat growers, especially small farmers, who are trapped in an exhausting cycle of uncertainty.
Earlier this year, when the market crashed, many were forced into distress sales at prices far below their production costs.
Those who managed to store their grain watched helplessly as imports pushed prices even lower. Now, once again, they are being told to trust the state’s pronouncements, even as those pronouncements change like shifting wind.
Into this policy fog enters the much-advertised Electronic Warehouse Receipt Financing (EWRF) mechanism. It was introduced as a modern alternative to the clunky, corruption-laden system of government procurement.
In theory, it is elegant: farmers store grain in accredited warehouses, receive electronic receipts detailing the quality and quantity of their produce, then use those receipts as collateral to obtain loans.
No more urgent, desperate selling. No more sharks circling with predatory pricing. When market conditions improve, farmers release their wheat at a fairer value.
However, the entire thing exists in theory only.
In practice, Pakistan’s wheat market has never been that simple.
The EWRF mechanism now risks becoming merely another lever for political manipulation, its market-based promise compromised by government intervention.
Rather than letting banks shoulder risk and build lending discipline through genuine commerce, the state has chosen to absorb much of the financial burden itself, turning the mechanism into yet another subsidy-laden workaround dressed in technological finery.
As with so many reforms in Pakistan, the form has changed, but the substance remains stubbornly familiar.
Each time the government signals a retreat from state intervention, it is followed by a hurried sprint back into the field, arms full of price guarantees and procurement pledges.
Policymakers do not appear to be making decisions based on economic logic, but rather reacting to political heat and public outcry, all while trying to keep IMF negotiators satisfied enough to unlock the next tranche of funds. It is policymaking by survival rather than strategy.
This flip-flopping exacts a heavy cost. When growers do not trust the market, they tend to restrict investment, fearing losses they cannot afford.
When buyers do not trust government commitments, they refrain from entering the marketplace. When prices are unclear, everyone waits, and the entire system slows to a crawl.
Middlemen, however, thrive in confusion. They are the one constant in Pakistan’s wheat economy: always present, always ready, always extracting value at the expense of farmers and consumers alike.
At its core, Pakistan’s wheat dilemma is not about grain. It is about governance.
The agricultural sector employs a large share of the population and remains politically explosive. A misstep in wheat pricing can set rural constituencies ablaze.
Governments respond by clinging tightly to control, terrified of letting the market fail the people who cannot afford failure.
Meanwhile, the IMF holds up its spreadsheets and demands reforms already delayed for decades.
Between these forces, Pakistan’s economic planners have been reduced to jugglers, tossing policy commitments into the air while hoping none of them fall on their heads.
The wheat market cannot function properly when uncertainty is baked into every announcement. Farmers know that when next year arrives, the goalposts may once again be shifted.
The minimum support price of today may be erased tomorrow. The “free market” proclaimed on Monday may be disowned by Thursday.
This is not liberalisation. It is not a regulation. It is confusion masquerading as reform.
Pakistan’s wheat pricing debacle illustrates a broader crisis of decision-making.
Instead of building sustainable systems, governments often scramble to reconcile short-term political needs with long-term economic demands.
They attempt to soften the landing of reform without ever taking off. The country remains stalled between two incompatible visions: one that trusts the market to deliver efficiency and another that relies on the state to shield the vulnerable from economic storms.
The biggest tragedy is not the price itself but the instability of the process.
The farmer in the field does not care if the wheat market is “market-determined” or “state-supported.” He cares whether he can survive. Whether his labour will feed his family. Whether the system will keep its promises.
These mixed signals from the government only deepen an atmosphere of distrust.
Instead of clearing the path ahead, policymakers have built a hall of mirrors in which every announcement comes with a hidden contradiction.
The wheat policy is supposed to nourish the nation, but today it merely feeds uncertainty.
