The coming wheat season, the third since the government abandoned the official support price and suspended traditional large-scale public procurement in April 2025, could prove one of the most uncertain for farmers.

The government had promised that a more resilient, market-based wheat-trading system would replace the previous model. Yet, two years on, the promised system has left farmers, particularly in Punjab, more exposed to price uncertainty, without the safeguards that once offered them a measure of income security.The pressures are mounting on multiple fronts: rising produc-tion costs, shrinking returns, worsening climate extremes, chronic water shortages, growing threats from pests and diseases, and `manipulated` wheat market. Together, these challenges have turned wheat cultivation into an increasingly risky proposition, leaving farmers totally insecure whether their crop will yield a satisfactory harvest, let alone a reasonable profit.

Faced with this uncertainty, they are weighingwhether to continue investing in wheat without assurance of a viable return, switch to alternative crops, or limit cultivation to what they need for their own consumption. Yet the problem extends beyond the risks inherent in farming. It is also about how those risks are distributed across the wheat supply chain. In a resilient trading system, farmers, the government, traders, flour millers, financial institutions, warehouse operators and other participants share the risks associated with production, storage, financing and marketing.

In Pakistan, however, farmers appear to bear a disproportionate share of the burden. With the government stepping back from support price and procurement, growers face rising input costs, volatile market prices and the prospect of selling their harvest below production cost, while other market participants have greater scope to manage their commercial exposure. The result is a system in which those who bear the risks of producing the crop have limited control over the terms on which it is sold.

The central issue is not necessarily whether the government should continue purchasing the entire wheat crop. It is whether the state can withdraw from its traditional role without establishing a credible alternative to protect farmers against market failures. Critics argue that Punjab`s policy choices have shifted an unbearable share of theburden onto producers. Given Punjab`s dominant role in wheat production, its decisions on procurement, pricing and market regulation have consequences far beyond the province. The limitations of the new approach became evident during Punjab`s procurement attempt in April 2026.

The provincial government sought to revive purchasing through a private-sector-led mechanism, facilitated by the government and supported by banks. The entire arrangement struggled when banks questioned its commercial viability. The aggregators engaged to purchase wheat managed to procure only 160,000 tonnes against an assigned target of 2.5 million tonnes. Even administrative actions against alleged hoarders and other market participants failed to deliver the intended procurement volumes. The price crashed.

The failure was not simply one of implementation.

It exposed the limits of a procurement model that relies on private buyers without ensuring that financing, commercial incentives and price expectations make large-scale purchasing viable.

The implications extend beyond the procurement programme itself.

At the Federal Committee on Agriculture (FCA) meeting in the first week of October, Punjab, for the first time perhaps, declined to commit to the federally assigned wheat target of 25m tonnes.

The committee consequently could not finalisethe national production target of 33m tonnes. The episode underscores the growing difficulty of national production planning amid uncertainty over farmers` incentives. It also raises a fundamental question: how can Pakistan plan its wheat supply when its largest producing province (over 76pc) is unwilling to commit to a production target? The uncertainty over domestic production and procurement has also brought import policy into focus. The federal government has moved to import up to 1m tonnes of wheat to meet domestic requirements. While imports may help address supply shortages or stabilise consumer prices, the decision raises questions about coordination between domestic production, procurement, strategic stocks and external purchases.

Importing wheat while domestic farmers face uncertain returns can create conflicting incentives if procurement and import decisions are not carefully timed and coordinated. The extent of this risk depends on actual domestic stocks, import timing, landed costs and the quantities ultimately purchased.

It is difficult to rationalise Punjab`s wheat policy by any reasonable measure. Its consequences have been felt by both rural and urban households, adding to the pressures of poverty and the rising cost of living. Rather than focusing on reducing input costs or subsidising them where federal policies constrained its ability to do so, the provincial government appears to have opted for raising the price of wheat as the only solution to farmers` problems. But it has a flip side. Over the past five years, the wheat price has risen by 150pc from Rs1,800 per 40kg in 2020-21 to Rs4,500 this year. If the proposed rate of Rs5,000 per 40kg is adopted, the increase over the 2020-21 level would reach nearly 178pc. These increases feed into flour prices, increasing the burden on urban consumers, particularly low-income households. With flour reportedly seII-ing for more than Rs150 per kg in urban markets, many poor families find it increasingly difficult to make both ends meet. The policy has thus exposed both farmers and consumers to mounting economic pressures.

The real test of wheat-market reform is not whether the government withdraws from procurement, but whether the system that replaces it can distribute risks more fairly, protect farmers` livelihood, keep the price of flour affordable and safeguard national food and nutritional security. Otherwise, market reform risks leaving farmers to bear the costs of a system over which they have little control, while consumers remain vulnerable to rising food prices. A viable wheat market must work for both producers and consumers. •