The Federal Committee on Agriculture has announced its provisional estimate of 26 million tons of wheat production for the ongoing 2020-21 rabi season. At a first glance, Pakistan seems to have achieved its second highest wheat output in history, which is only 2.4 percent less than the highest level touched in 2016-2017. Does record production mean that the incumbents’ agri woes are finally behind them?

Unfortunately, even as the output has shown an increase of 4.4 percent over last year, this is no ‘bumper’ crop. Provisional estimates of production are still less than country’s annual consumption, calculated at 130 kilograms per capita. Nevertheless, the rise in production seems to indicate that the stagnation has finally been arrested, if not altogether reversed. But was it unexpected?

Back in November 2020 – when wheat sowing was at its peak – BR Research had explained that the output during the then upcoming season would invariably rise, considering the anticipated increase in minimum guaranteed rate. Since then, Punjab and Sindh governments have announced minimum support price at Rs 1,800 and Rs 2,000 per 40 kg, a rise of 28 and 42 percent over last year, respectively.

No surprises then that farmers across the country have flocked in hoards towards wheat, backed by an increase of 4.2 percent in area under cultivation. At 9.2 million hectares, it appears that farmers have sown maximum acres under the crop, buoyed by a minimum guaranteed return on investment of 40 percent (in less than 6 months!) against national average cost of production of Rs 1,300 per 40kg.

Yet, the production is still insufficient to meet domestic demand over the next 12 months, let alone help build strategic reserve stocks or produce an exportable surplus. A once bitten twice shy PTI government plans to allow import of up to 3 to 5 million tons during the ongoing calendar year to build buffer, which if transpires would add $0.6 billion to $1 billion to the import bill. So, has the gambit paid off?

Back in November, BR Research had cautioned the government from giving into pressure from farming community, and advised that fears of farmers switching away from wheat to other crops in absence of a higher MSP were hyperbole. Pakistan’s acreage under wheat has stagnated between 8.8 to 9.2 million hectares over the last decade for obvious reasons. Not only does the crop have very little competition during the off-monsoon rabi season, the inelastic demand for wheat flour and its products as staple variety means acreage remains constant, at over 90 percent of area available for cultivation during the Oct – May plantation period.

Even as area under the crop has been maxed out, the precious 0.4 million incremental hectares may have added no more than one million tons of output, coincidentally equal to increase in volume over last year. That of course means that yield has recorded little change, remaining stagnant at 2.83 tons per hectare. Fears persist that crop productivity will prove to be the Achilles’ heel of Pakistan’s national food security in coming years. Barring one year (FY17), Pakistan’s wheat yield has in fact remained stuck between 2.75 and 2.85 tons per hectare for much of last decade, abysmal compared to regional and global averages.

Unfortunately, government has even missed the yield target of 2.92 tons per hectare it had set for the ongoing cropping season, never mind how mediocre the target was to begin with. Of course, setting a higher productivity target would have required providing seeds of high yielding wheat varieties, itself a slow-brewing nightmare because research and development in the area is simply non-existent. Consider that it takes anywhere between 5 -7 years to develop, test, trial and mass market indigenous seed varieties, as new varieties cannot just be imported from other countries due to lack of climate and soil suitability. An idea had surfaced in the neglected corners of national agricultural research centres to borrow high yield seeds from the eastern neighbour, considering the high degree of overlap in the environmental conditions across both sides of the border. But naturally, national interest demanded that the idea be silenced, as the country has now access to record remittances, clearly received for no other good reason but to spend on import of staple food commodities.

Of course, alternate solutions do exist to resolve the looming food security challenge, such as encouraging government to procure ever-higher share of national production, release it to flour mills on subsidized prices, and then impose price controls at retail level. But accompanying illustration explains why a fiscally moth-eaten state has even struggled to succeed at that task. Maybe the next proposition would be a return to ration system. Turns out, even if wishes were horses, beggars would still continue to beg.