Before they commit their money and labour to another crop, the government should answer a question left unsettled by the last harvest: will the families growing the province’s food receive the same concern as those struggling to buy it?

During the last wheat harvest, the government announced a benchmark of Rs3,500 per 40 kilograms, but the private aggregator system failed to procure at scale.

By early October, open-market prices were reportedly around Rs5,300 per 40 kilograms.

Punjab’s farmers are preparing to sow wheat again. Before they commit their money and labour to another crop, the government should answer a question left unsettled by the last harvest: will the families growing the province’s food receive the same concern as those struggling to buy it?

In October, rising flour prices prompted a Rs10 billion relief package and expanded subsidised wheat supplies to mills. Earlier, when growers faced disappointing harvest prices, many were left to manage the consequences within their own households.

The rise in a family’s food bill brought government into the market. The fall in a cultivator’s earnings too often left him alone with his creditors.

Assistance for consumers was necessary. But fairness requires us to consider the circumstances of those whose losses attracted less urgent attention.

The Pakistan Economic Survey 2025–26 puts rural poverty at 36.2 per cent, against 17.4 per cent in urban areas. Poverty is more than twice as prevalent in the countryside. With approximately three-fifths of Pakistanis living outside cities, roughly three-quarters of the country’s poor live there.

Punjab’s poverty rate has also deteriorated, rising from 16.5 per cent in 2018–19 to 23.3 per cent in 2024–25. Nearly a quarter of the province’s population lives below the national poverty line.

These figures place agricultural policy among communities with widespread deprivation and limited capacity to withstand financial setbacks. Their vulnerability deserves a place in decisions about who receives public protection.

Yet the poorer grower can........

© Minute Mirror