FPCCI urges overhaul of Pakistan’s wheat policy to shield farmers from rising costs

A seminar in Lahore titled "Rethinking our Wheat Policy," organised with Zia Snacks and Family Food Products, brought a business voice to Pakistan's wheat debate. Shahid Imran, convener of the FPCCI Regional Committee on Food, said farmers face severe financial pressure because production costs have risen for diesel, electricity, fertilisers and pesticides. He argued the current approach leaves farmers exposed and called for a fundamental policy review.

Imran outlined concrete measures the government should adopt to protect producers while managing market and consumer outcomes:

• Market-stabilisation role for reserves: Use the strategic stock as a tool to stabilise domestic prices instead of holding fixed-price procurement that can create distortions.

• Targeted consumer protection: If international wheat prices surge, protect low-income households through targeted subsidies rather than suppressing farm-gate prices. That keeps incentives for farmers while directing support to vulnerable consumers.

• Private-sector storage and deregulation: Recognise private stockists in a deregulated market so they can absorb surplus supply at harvest time. FPCCI stressed the need for a broad-based network of stockists to avoid market concentration in the hands of a few players.

Provincial procurement changes and results Imran highlighted Punjab's dominant role in national wheat output—roughly 77 percent—and criticised the province's shifting procurement practices over the last three crop cycles: halting direct procurement in 2024, introducing electronic receipts in 2025, and adopting a private-sector procurement model in 2026. According to his assessment, these changes have not delivered the desired results and farmers continue to shoulder financial losses.

The FPCCI brief presents a two-part approach: protect farmer incomes through market-consistent procurement and strategic reserves, while protecting poor consumers through targeted assistance if international prices rise. It also assigns a stabilising and absorptive role to private stockists but warns against allowing storage and trading to concentrate among a few entities.

• Set up rules, funding and management for a 4-million-tonne strategic reserve and specify procurement at market-based rates.

• Create regulatory frameworks to register and monitor private stockists and prevent market concentration.
• Review provincial procurement experiments and collect data on outcomes for growers across the three crop cycles.