FOR as long as many of us can remember, we were raised on a comforting national belief: that Pakistan is an agricultural country, blessed with rivers, fertile plains, and hardworking farmers who would always keep this nation fed. It was repeated so often, with such pride, that it became part of our identity. But myths, no matter how deeply rooted, eventually collide with reality. And today, as we look across our fields, our markets, and our import bills, we must face a difficult truth. Pakistan may still depend on agriculture, but agriculture can no longer depend on Pakistan.
This decline did not arrive suddenly. In the early decades, especially during the Green Revolution of the 1960s, we saw what real progress looked like. New seeds, expanding irrigation, mechanization, rising wheat yields for a moment, it felt as if we were on the verge of becoming a regional powerhouse. But that momentum faded. Innovation slowed, productivity stagnated, and policy became a revolving door of short-term fixes and political theatrics that rarely survived beyond a single government’s tenure.
The past few years have been especially damaging. Instead of reforming markets, we suffocated them. Instead of empowering farmers, we trapped them in bureaucratic webs. The seed sector was choked by excessive regulation, discouraging private investment and delaying the arrival of climate-resilient varieties. Fertilizer markets were distorted by sudden price caps, erratic subsidies, and chronic shortages that pushed farmers toward blackmarket rates. Wheat procurement became a political battleground, with inconsistent support prices, delayed imports, and provincialfederal tugofwar turning a staple crop into a national crisis. We created monopolies where competition should have thrived. Sugar mills dictated terms to farmers. Middlemen captured the lion’s share of profits in fruit and vegetable markets. Government interventions, meant to stabilize prices, often ended up creating artificial shortages, hoarding, and smuggling. The result is a cruel paradox: the farmer earns the least, the consumer pays the most, and the middleman walks away smiling.
Yet even these policy failures pale in comparison to the force now reshaping our agricultural destiny: climate change. Pakistan is among the world’s most climatevulnerable countries, and agriculture is the first casualty. Heatwaves now arrive earlier and stay longer, burning crops at their most sensitive stages. Monsoons have become unpredictable, too much rain when we don’t need it, too little when we desperately do. Glaciers are melting at alarming rates, turning oncereliable river flows into unpredictable surges or dangerous shortages. The 2022 floods were a brutal reminder of our fragility, wiping out millions of acres of crops and destroying livelihoods across Sindh and southern Punjab. Cotton, once the pride of our textile economy, has been battered by rising temperatures, pest outbreaks, and shifting rainfall patterns. Wheat yields swing wildly. Rice faces water stress. Livestock suffers from heat and disease. Climate change is not a distant threat; it is already rewriting our agricultural map.
And yet, our response remains stuck in the past. We talk about climatesmart agriculture but irrigate like it’s 1960. We speak of droughtresistant seeds, but our regulatory system keeps them locked away. We know which crops belong where but refuse to enforce zoning. We compensate farmers after disasters, but do not insure them before disaster strikes. In essence, we are confronting a 21stcentury climate crisis with 20thcentury tools and 19thcentury governance.
The consequences are visible in our import bills. A country that once prided itself on feeding itself now imports wheat, cotton, pulses, and edible oil. Our foreign exchange reserves bleed because our fields no longer produce what they once did. Our farmers are exhausted, our markets distorted, and our policies misaligned with both science and common sense.
If Pakistan is to reclaim its agricultural future, we must first let go of the comforting illusion that we are still an agricultural success story. We are not, not anymore. But we can be again, if we choose honesty over denial and longterm thinking over political convenience. We need a unified national strategy that treats agriculture not as a slogan but as a national security priority. We need to deregulate where markets work, regulate where monopolies thrive, and innovate where climate demands it. We must invest in water efficiency, climateresilient seeds, modern irrigation, and farmer education. And above all, we must protect the people who feed this country, not with speeches, but with systems that work. Pakistan’s agricultural story is not over. But the next chapter will depend on whether we continue clinging to myths or finally confront the realities shaping our land, our climate, and our future.
—The writer is Ex-Chairman, National Disaster Management Authority.
