Pakistan Expects a 25% Water Shortfall for Its Main Wheat Season

Pakistan is entering its Rabi season, the winter cropping period, with an expected water shortage of about 25%, according to Dawn, which reports reservoir carryover below 9.5 million acre-feet, the lowest since 2021. Wheat is the season's main crop. The Indus River System Authority's technical committee is due to finalize water availability and provincial shares, and Dawn notes that the three-tier distribution formula used to allocate water may revive disputes between provinces.

Pakistan starts this season from an already weak position. The previous Rabi season faced no water shortage, and the country still recorded an estimated wheat shortfall of more than two million tonnes, which forced the government to order imports of one million tonnes, including 750,000 tonnes in a first phase for November delivery. The shortage now forecast applies on top of that deficit, as regional agricultural coverage summarised. Islamabad has in past years set wheat production targets near 30 million tonnes, with the Federal Committee on Agriculture fixing the figure each autumn.

The economic consequence runs through the external account. Pakistan imports energy and, increasingly, grain, and it does so with limited foreign exchange reserves and an International Monetary Fund programme that constrains subsidy spending. A larger wheat import bill arriving at the same time as crude above $100 a barrel compounds the pressure on the rupee and on domestic food prices, which are the most politically sensitive component of the consumer price index in any low-income economy.

Water allocation is also a federal question. Disagreement among provinces over shares during a shortage year has historically sharpened political conflict, which is the channel through which a hydrological number becomes a governance problem.