Daily Times

Severely imperilled by a dry spell that has been going on for months, the output of wheat, among other winter crops, is set to take a plunge to the bottom. In a country where adverse impacts of climate change continue to cause widespread uncertainty as far as food security is concerned, farmers are forced to take the heat from all corners.

Just last month, skyrocketing prices of urea fertiliser were being decried as an unaffordable challenge for the farming communities that struggled to make agriculture economically viable. Today, as shrill alarm bells go ringing over furious mother nature, one can’t help but wonder how it only took one season for the glad tidings to end on a sour note.

Impressive agricultural yields saw projections of wheat harvests soaring to a record-breaking high of 28 million tonnes and the government wished to tout itself as a leading basmati rice producer in the global market. Sadly, these ambitious targets and lofty ambitions to make use of India’s domestic woes to further build on its export base were fairly short-lived. While the loss of benefitting from a cash crop cannot be stressed enough, the government would do well to prepare well in advance. There’s enough evidence of th implications of the

Ukraine war on Pakistan’s economy to understand how a single event on the international spectre can cause irreparable harm to any country dependent on imported food items and therefore, the state cannot afford to walk down the same line.

This desperation to carve out short-term arrangements does not provide any administration with the breathing space or determination to work on a comprehensive line of action. Although ideally, the state would be urged to strike a balance between expanding wheat production and ensuring safety nets to provide widespread access to wheat flour, extraordinary measures should also be contemplated to consider the onslaught of climate change. It makes sense to make the move towards alternative crops, such as barley. *