By Asadullah Kamran
Wheat imports according to the same report are estimated to be 1.5 MMT in MY23 to make up for the predicted domestic shortage, whereas the work done by BR Research indicates a shortage of between 3 to 6 MMT, based on future yield predictions. Either way a wheat shortage is on the cards and how the government deals with it is an important question.
T
his isn’t Pakistan’s first rodeo concerning shortages of critical commodities essential to sustaining a stable economy, in this case wheat. These shortages are addressed through imports at the expense of the taxpayers due to basic mismanagement and inability to make decisions addressing future concerns. We might be in for another episode. This year doesn’t seem to bode well for the country either, and we’re not really having a good start. The active political strife, rising global commodity prices, climate change and now to cap it all off we might be facing a wheat shortage in the upcoming months which builds on the already long list of issues. Wheat is absolutely critical for any economy, it’s essentially the fuel that keeps people going and in turn the economy going. We only need to look at Africa and realise the absolute importance of wheat in a country’s food security. Shortages have the potential to quickly turn into crises. It should be categorised as a top priority
FOOD
First time? Nah.
item considering the fact that Pakistan has a huge middle class population that spends a significant portion of their earnings on food (i.e flour). An increase in price of a critical commodity stokes inflation and reduces an individual’s residual income to be spent elsewhere, essentially having an adverse impact on the whole economy. “Due to lower area and reduced fertiliser application, marketing year (May/April) (MY) MY23 wheat production is forecast at 26.4 million metric tons (MMT), four percent lower than last year” predicts the report “Grain and Feed Annual” from the US department of agriculture.
A
lthough generally speaking Pakistan is an agrarian economy just based on the figures of employment and overall contribution to the GDP. Then it would be safe to assume that Pakistan has the ability to address its domestic demand ? Wrong! There was a massive sugar crisis last year, kicking up a lot of dust in the political arena for PTI, not to mention the distress and difficulties consumers faced sourcing this daily used commodity. Likewise the Pakistani consumers have witnessed shortages in wheat as well, an equally important staple if not more. Pakistan back in 2020 had also imported wheat to the tune of 300,000 tonnes to ad-
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