Islamabad’s climate change moment

Pakistan’s fast rising climate change induced crisis, on Wednesday came to haunt millions of inhabitants in Islamabad and parts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP).

After an unusual rise of temperature for this time of the year, heavy rainfall clubbed with a powerful hailstorm rocked the capital and parts of KP.

Countless cars were battered with some witnessing broken windshields after countless balls of ice descended robustly. Many households also reported broken windows, while there were unconfirmed reports of roof top solar panels getting cracked during the calamity.

But the biggest hit imaginable was incurred to farmers across the storm hit areas, notably those who had partially harvested their wheat crop ahead of Wednesday.

For such partially harvested crop awaiting separation of the seeds from the plants using threshers, the rain storm was lethal. Such stocks lying in the open were in danger of becoming almost completely lost.

Wednesday’s rainfall marked the latest setback to the wheat crop, adding to losses for farmers, piling up since spring last year. Then, the government of the Punjab abruptly stepped back at the last minute from purchasing stocks of wheat at its earlier announced rate of Rs3900 per maund [40 kgs]. Within days of that event in early 2024, the price of wheat paid to farmers rapidly crashed by 30-35 per cent.

The adversely moving economics of Pakistan’s wheat crop-the main staple diet for most households, has raised profoundly challenging questions over the future of the agricultural sector.

On the one hand, the very future of wheat remains under threat as cash strapped farmers hit by last year’s price crash are left struggling.  Already, reports from parts of Pakistan’s farming areas have suggested a fall in the use of chemical fertilizers-a direct consequence of the financial squeeze upon farmers.

On the other hand, the climate change induced crisis also promises to hit hard the wider segment of Pakistan’s agricultural sector. The fallout is set to grow in the absence of areas like agricultural research keeping in step with challenges, such as the development and provision of heat resistant varieties of seeds to farmers. Though the Punjab government which oversees the largest area under cultivation of crops this week announced a new support package for farmers, the benefit to farmers from that crop may not be sufficient.

With the moment of crisis increasingly surrounding Pakistan’s farming communities, the challenge ahead needs an immediate and tangible response. Urgent steps are needed immediately for addressing the need to change agricultural inputs in line with fast mounting need.

In sharp contrast, policies such as provision of new tractors to farmers have an unfortunate history across Pakistan. In the past, anecdotal evidence suggest that tractors bought at subsidized rates for agriculture, were instead deployed mostly for use across the industrial sector.

The farm sector’s centrality to Pakistan’s economy is evident from statistics such as agriculture accounting for a quarter of the country’s overall GDP. Besides more critically, the income of more than half of Pakistan’s population who rely directly or indirectly on agriculture, is in danger of getting badly hit.

Going forward with climate change putting Pakistan’s food security at risk, urgent steps are needed beyond interventions just in agriculture.

More urgently are the steps needed to completely review the country’s economic policies at the federal and provincial levels.

The government’s push for devoting resources to building more infrastructure, notably motorways and other transport related initiatives needs to be suspended immediately. Additionally, allocation of funds in the name of development to members of the federal and provincial legislatures, also needs to be frozen.

Instead, resources thus saved must all be devoted towards meeting the challenge posed by climate change. Areas such as saving future crops stand right at the center of reversing food insecurity across Pakistan. Besides, urgent attention is also required for a fast paced reforestation of the country, reversing the ongoing deforestation that has dangerously trimmed down the country’s forestry cover and aggravated climate change.

And last but not the least, the discussion over an emergency response to climate change deserves to be undertaken through an unprecedented national consensus. The ongoing political discord between parties that make up Pakistan’s ruling coalition, over the future of newly planned canals in Sindh provides a glaring example of a divide that must be avoided. The challenge of climate change is far too vital to be ignored even partially, as Pakistan witnesses one of the worst challenges in its history.