Pakistan’s flood-hit Sindh province likely to produce 50% less wheat

QAMBAR SHAHDADKOT, Pakistan (AA) – Pakistani farmers’ cropland has been under waist-deep water for over a month — quashing hopes of producing ready-to-reap crops, including rice and wheat, and exacerbating fears of acute food shortage in the flood-hit country of 220 million.

Drenching monsoon spells and apocalyptic floods have killed nearly 1,700 people across Pakistan, mainly in Sindh and Balochistan provinces, the two hardest-hit regions, flattening hundreds of thousands of houses, schools, and hospitals, and wiping out huge swathes of agricultural lands.

The development, agriculturists apprehend, is likely to reduce the wheat production for the coming year by 50% in Sindh, the country’s second-largest food basket after northeastern Punjab province, and southwestern Balochistan province, which makes up 42% of Pakistan in terms of land.

Despite being a major wheat producer, Pakistan imports the commodity, particularly from the war-hit Ukraine.

The cash-strapped South Asian country has suffered staggering financial losses amounting to $40 billion, mainly in terms of infrastructure and agriculture. The World Bank fears that the economic damage caused by the super floods might push another 10 million of the country’s roughly 220 million people below the poverty line.

As the time for sowing wheat is approaching nearer, tens of thousands of farmers fear that the stationary rainwaters would continue to cover their lands for at least another month or so.

Agriculture is the main source of income for millions of people in rural Sindh, which produces over 4 million tons of the country’s total 26.8 million tons of wheat annually.

They not only grow wheat to sell out but also use a chunk of the crop for their families. Not being able to grow the crop this season means they will have to procure wheat for themselves from the market.