A journey to a Wheat Market: How to Avert Wheat Crises Permanently?

Wheat is the most important agricultural crop of Pakistan. It is grown by 80 percent of farmers and planted on about 22 million acres, which is approximately 40 percent of the country’s total cultivated land. Punjab plays a major role in wheat production by allocating 16 million acres (71.5 percent), followed by Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan with almost similar trends in production. Wheat also contributes 37 percent to both food energy and protein intake. Being staple food, it contributes 72 percent to the food basket of Pakistan, with the highest per capita consumption of 124 kg per person per annum in the world. A significant increase in wheat production has been observed in the past four decades, that is, from 11 million tons, in 1980 to 25 million tons in 2020, while, during this period, the area under wheat has increased from 17.2 million acres to 21.8 million acres.