Deregulating wheat, sugar markets

An opinion piece in The Express Tribune argues that Pakistan's repeated wheat and sugar crises reflect more than poor harvests. The writer blames weak planning, flawed policies and political influence for recurring shortages and price spikes. Official data cited in the column show wheat output rose 4.3% to 29.605 million tons, yet flour prices kept climbing.

Under an agreement the government reached with the IMF in September 2024, agricultural support prices are being phased out, with wheat targeted for fiscal 2024-25 and sugar by June 2026. The government has already announced the end of official wheat procurement and plans to shut down Passco. The column adds that decades of regulation mostly benefited millers, sugar mill owners and middlemen, while Pakistan imported wheat at high global prices and exported it when prices were low.

The writer argues that deregulation without modern storage, competition enforcement and effective market institutions could simply hand power to private cartels. As an alternative, the column proposes requiring licensed traders, flour mills and importers to keep 10% of their stocks in government-designated warehouses. The piece concludes that political pressure over food prices makes full and sustained deregulation extremely difficult.