In all cities, one can see long queues of people for buying flour. In recent days, the prices of flour have increased multiple times. Pakistan’s two main food staples are wheat and rice, and of them, rice was already expensive, and now flour is as well. The average person’s life has been made miserable by this situation, and most of the families’ basic concern is the provision of flour. The commodity has different price tags in different places. For examples, a bag of 15 kg of flour costs Rs2,500 in Peshawar, in Rawalpindi Rs1,750, in Karachi Rs2,200, and in Lahore it is Rs1,600. The data show the price of wheat in Pakistan has shattered all previous records dating back 75 years. While wheat is being sold in the open market for Rs3,700 per maund, the official price of wheat in Rawalpindi is set at Rs3,000 per maund. In Punjab, the support price of wheat has been set at Rs3,000 per maund and in Sindh at Rs4,000 per maund and the extraordinary increase in the demand for flour in the flood-affected areas has also pushed up the prices of flour. In Balochistan, the price of a 100 kilogramme wheat bag has risen from Rs11,000 to Rs13,000 in the last two weeks. There have also been reports of flour factories in Balochistan closing owing to a scarcity of wheat. This condition necessitates the activation of the price control mechanism. The rise in wheat consumption is a natural result of the country’s rising population.
Wheat is Pakistan’s most farmed grain, yet the country that once sold wheat to the globe is now compelled to import it. The government must do everything necessary to improve wheat output so that citizens may readily buy flour. Agriculture should be supported, and farmers should be rewarded for increasing agricultural output.