Farmers Demonstrate Nationwide for a Guaranteed Rs5,000 Wheat Price

Small farmers held demonstrations across Pakistan on Sunday under the banner of the Pakistan Kissan Rabta Committee (PKRC), demanding a guaranteed wheat support price of Rs5,000 per maund and an immediate end to what they called corporate land grabbing. The protests, called from Lahore, drew on what organisers described as rising costs of diesel, electricity, fertiliser and seed that have left crop returns unviable, though the PKRC did not cite specific figures for any of those input costs.

What the PKRC is demanding

PKRC president Tariq Mahmood and secretary general Riffat Maqsood led the demonstrations, with federal committee member Farooq Tariq also named in the group's statements. Their demands went beyond the headline wheat figure:

• A guaranteed support price of Rs5,000 per maund for wheat
• An immediate halt to corporate land acquisitions and genetically modified crops
• Restoration of the Pakistan Agricultural Storage and Services Corporation (PASSCO) as a state buyer
• A public procurement mechanism to protect growers from middlemen and market cartels
• Broader agrarian reforms, including land redistribution for landless peasants
• Transparent water distribution and support for local seed sovereignty

The PKRC also framed its objections around government policies linked to International Monetary Fund and World Bank-backed reforms that favour market deregulation, which the group argues have weakened public agricultural institutions such as PASSCO. No government response to the protests had been reported as of Sunday.

Not the only group making the same demand

The PKRC is not the only farmer body pressing this figure. Pakistan Kissan Ittehad, a separate organisation led by its president, Khalid Khokhar, made the identical Rs5,000-per-40kg demand at a press conference in late September, warning then that farmers might skip wheat sowing altogether without a clear government price policy before the planting window closed. Khokhar's group also cited a fall in DAP fertiliser consumption, from 2.39 million tonnes to 1.25 million tonnes, as evidence that rising input costs were already pushing farmers to cut back. Two unrelated farmer alliances converging on the same number within a few weeks of each other points to the figure reflecting a shared view of farmers' production costs, rather than one group's opening position in a negotiation.

Why the timing matters for this season's crop

The protests landed in the middle of Pakistan's wheat-sowing window for the 2026-27 rabi season, the period when a clear support price most directly shapes how much land farmers commit to the crop. That window is also opening under a separate strain: irrigation authorities have projected a 22 percent water shortfall for the rabi season, meaning farmers are weighing a planting decision against both an uncertain price and a tighter water supply at the same time.

What happens without a government response

PASSCO's reduced role as a state buyer has been a recurring complaint from farmer groups this year, following a government push toward private wheat procurement that critics say leaves growers more exposed to buyers who can set prices without a floor. Without a published state price policy, farmers said they are left to negotiate directly with private buyers and millers, a dynamic that both the PKRC and Kissan Ittehad say has already pushed market rates below what covers their costs. Neither group has set a deadline for a government response, but Kissan Ittehad's September warning that farmers could skip sowing entirely gives the current wheat season, not a future one, as the point at which the dispute becomes irreversible.

Build Better Pakistan's Economy Desk is tracking the wheat-price dispute and will follow up if the government responds or the rabi sowing season closes without a new price policy.