Farmers announce nationwide protest as wheat crisis lingers on

LAHORE – The community of farmers in the country announced a nationwide protest over the wheat import crisis on May 10th.

The announcement in this regard was made on Sunday despite the fact that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has promised to address their grievances and has formed a committee in this regard.

Farmers in Pakistan’s Punjab province are demanding the government to stop wheat imports that have flooded the market at a time when they expect bumper crops; Punjab produces most of the wheat crop and so the farmers from the province are very active in their demands.

The farmers opine that the import of wheat in the second half of 2023 and the first three months of this year has led to excess wheat which has reduced the prices.

The protest call comes after the premier took notice of the matter and constituted a committee under the Ministry of National Food Security and Research to address the complaints of the farmers.

As far as the details of the protest are concerned, Khalid Khokhar, the head of Kissan Ittehad Pakistan, said at a press conference that on May 10th after the Friday prayers, the protest would start from Multan and this protest will be expanded to the whole of Pakistan.

“Thousands of farmers will come, there will be hundreds of tractors, trailers. Animals, cattle and children and women will also be accompanied,” Khokhar warned and added that 60 million farmers were slaughtered just for the sake of corruption.

The farmer’s leader said that they had no other option, alleging that the mafia made Rs100 billion. He believed that the country’s $1 billion worth of foreign exchange was spent and the farmers incurred around Rs400 billion in losses. Khokhar elaborated that multiple farmers’ groups were approached and that protests would be held ‘to save the country’.

The protests of farmers are important in the backdrop of Pakistan’s economy which has its major chunk driven from agriculture. Official figures imply that agriculture contributes about 24 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and accounts for half of the employed labor force in the country.

The protests come as the prices of wheat have nosedived in Pakistan in recent weeks and are much below the government’s support price of Rs3,900 per 40-kilogram bag.