Syed Haider Ali
IN Punjab, farming once followed a rhythm people could set their watches by. Winters brought cool nights for wheat to settle, summers followed and monsoon rain arrived between patience and promise. Today, farmers speak less of harvests and more of guessing. “We plant wheat now not by signs, but by hope,” a Layyah farmer told a local researcher in 2024. That hope is struggling. Punjab still feeds Pakistan, producing about 75 per cent of the country’s wheat and over 80 per cent of its rice (Pakistan Bureau of Statistics; Pakistan Agricultural Research Council). Yet, feeding the nation is increasingly costly, unpredictable and fragile.
Weather explains much of this shift. The Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) reports that average temperatures in Punjab have risen by 0.6–1°C over the past three decades. While seemingly minor, this has a measurable impact on crops like wheat, traditionally reliant on cooler nights. Research shows a 1°C rise in minimum temperature during the wheat season can reduce yields by up to 7 per cent (PARC and allied crop data). Rainfall patterns are changing too, becoming erratic, with longer dry spells interrupted by sudden downpours. In 2022, Pakistan experienced nearly 190 per cent above-normal monsoon rainfall, hitting Southern Punjab hardest (PMD). Millions of acres were submerged just before harvest.
The calamities continued. In 2025, monsoon floods breached embankments, inundating villages along the Chenab and Ravi rivers that had barely recovered from earlier disasters. Relief agencies reported unprecedented flooding affecting thousands of villages across Punjab, causing displacement and crop loss (national flood assessments, 2025). Yet droughts followed. In 2024–25, several districts received 30–50 per cent less rainfall than normal, triggering drought alerts (PMD; provincial reports). In rain-fed areas, farmers waited for rain that never came, leaving many unable to plant.
Water insecurity compounds these challenges. Punjab accounts for over half of Pakistan’s groundwater extraction, mostly for irrigation (Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources). Tube wells now exceed one million across the province, pumping relentlessly. Groundwater levels in central and southern districts are dropping by up to one metre per year (PCRWR). Those who can afford to deepen wells continue farming; those who cannot quietly abandon the land.
Climate change nudges, rather than forces, departures. Families are making decisions once unthinkable. Punjab’s urban populations are growing faster than rural ones, according to Pakistan’s 2023 Census. Cities such as Lahore, Multan and Faisalabad are absorbing migrants from climate-exposed districts, despite the absence of a formal system to track climate-induced migration. The ripple effects extend beyond rural Punjab. Reduced wheat output drives up food prices nationwide. The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics reports that food inflation crossed 30 per cent in 2023, with staples like wheat and flour among the largest contributors. Urban families feel this in grocery bills; public budgets feel it in rising import costs.
Punjab’s breadbasket is under siege, challenged by shifting temperatures, erratic rainfall and dwindling water supplies. Farmers’ hopes now anchor the province’s agricultural future, but sustaining them requires urgent adaptation to a climate that no longer follows the old rhythms.
—The writer is a PhD scholar in the Department of Political Science at University of Gujrat and a Research Associate at Rizq.
