Flooding in dozens of districts in Pakistan’s Balochistan, Sindh and Punjab provinces have destroyed wide swaths of agricultural land. The country could soon face food shortages if thousands of acres of cropland are not restored.
“We are concerned that if the farmlands aren’t drained right now, we won’t be able to plant crops for winter season, the most important of which is the wheat crop,” Nazia Bibi, a farmer in Pishin district of Balochistan, told DW.
There is a fear that Pakistanis will be unable to find essential food staples in markets. To cope with the challenge, the government is importing tomatoes and onions from neighboring Afghanistan and Iran.
“My existing stock of vegetables is the only one I have had for the past few days. I am waiting for the imported stock of onions and tomatoes to reach the warehouses so we can sell those,” a vegetable vendor in Islamabad sitting with a cart of mostly rotten onions told DW.
Food assistance needed
Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA) is leading relief efforts in coordination with the UN and other international organizations.
The United Nation’s World Food Programme (WFP) has so far provided over 464,000 people in Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Sindh with relief food assistance.
The WFP added that it aims to provide 1.9 million people facing food insecurity in flood-affected districts with food assistance, according to a September situation report.
“The intensity of the situation in villages is such that people are snatching ration packs from each other during distribution drives. It’s really heartbreaking to see that,” Abid Mir, a social activist and professor at a university in Sindh, told DW.
Muhammad Younas, an official at the Provincial Disaster Management Authority in Balochistan, told DW that foreign aid was being distributed to people through the NDMA.
“The NDMA delivers aid to provincial disaster management authorities, who then pass it to the district management and other administrative units.”
“International NGOs have their own local partners who they give their aid to. They have their own mechanism and ways of assessing the damages and victims’ needs. They, however, must get permission from the government to work in a particular area,” Younas added.
Although the Pakistani government plans to provide cash payments to over 4.5 million flood-affected households through the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), Islamabad has been criticized for not doing enough to prepare for the monsoon season.
Saqlain Abbas, a farmer in Punjab state’s Rajanpur district, told DW that enough measures were not taken to protect land and homes during the monsoon season.
“For years, my family has been reliant on cultivating rice and wheat to feed ourselves and now all our crops have been submerged in water,” he said.
The WFP said it will begin “climate resilience” programs next year in Pakistan after its initial relief response by “improving community infrastructure.”
Renowned economist Kaiser Bengali, however, told DW it will not be easy for the Pakistani government to get a large amount of aid.
“One, there is a donor fatigue. Two, Pakistan needs to slash non-development expenditure, including the non-combatant defense budget, ration petrol and ban non-essential imports to generate more money that will be required for flood rehabilitation,” he said.
Economic impact of flooded agricultural sector
The monsoon floods come as Pakistan is facing an ongoing economic crisis, with high inflation making food staples more expensive. Pakistan is also a major exporter of agricultural products, and the flood damage will likely cut into a vital source of income.
For example, Pakistan is the world’s fourth-largest exporter of rice.
According to the nation’s Bureau of Statistics, Pakistan exported a record $2.5 billion (€2.5 billion) worth of rice during the 2021-22 fiscal year.
Flood-stricken Sindh province accounts for 42% of the rice production. A report by the NGO International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) assessing crop loss in Sindh shows that flooding was particularly severe in rice-growing areas.
This has resulted in the estimated loss of 1.9 million tons of rice, equivalent to an 80% loss of the expected total rice production in the province.
Combined with an 88% loss of sugarcane and 61% loss of cotton, the total economic impact is worth $1.3 billion in Sindh alone, according to the report. Three key vegetable crops in several districts in Sindh — tomatos, onions and chilli — face losses of $374 million, it added.
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