With shortages being anticipated along with a further rise in the price of wheat, the Punjab government wants to shore up its stocks by half-a-million-tonnes and is taking its case to the federal government to help it import the commodity before it is too late. Managing the production and stock levels of wheat has become a persistent issue which raises serious questions about the government’s approach towards tackling this issue.
As per reports, the province had earlier reached out to the Pakistan Agriculture Storage and Services Corporation (PASSCO) asking for 500,000 tonnes out of its stocks of three million tonnes. In July, PASSCO responded that it cannot spare the quantity from local stocks. However, PASSCO offered that it can share half of its one million tonnes import, but this proposal was also later retracted to Punjab’s dismay.
The provincial government wrote to the federal government regarding this issue and is still waiting for a response. Some have argued that politics is part of the reason why PASSCO refused to oblige with the request. For the past few weeks, the federation and Sindh and Punjab government’s have been competing over who damages the wheat market more. This inter-provincial competition does not help the state of affairs and the volatility in the already unstable market has increased manifold and an overheated wheat market has set the flour market alight.
Refusing to wait around anymore, the Punjab government plans on dispatching its food secretary to Islamabad on Monday to convince the federation of seriousness and urgency of the issue. It is unfortunate that this is happening in the first place for a product as essential and basic as wheat. It is imperative that we as an agricultural country reflect on our approach to producing these staple products because we cannot afford to keep importing them. In fact, we should be exporting wheat to the rest of the world amidst this global crisis instead of fearing shortages every few weeks.
