Pakistan can put a dollar figure on wheat cargo. It is much less willing to put an economic cost against the water decisions that help determine whether that cargo will be needed.

When wheat is imported, the transaction is visible. There is a tender, a contracted quantity, a price and a demand for foreign exchange. When irrigation becomes unreliable, the consequences are scattered across farm accounts, pumping bills, crop yields and household food expenditure. No single account brings them together.

For a country that struggles to finance its imports, this is a serious omission. We scrutinise the cost of purchasing food abroad while giving much less attention to the management of a productive asset that helps grow it at home.

WAPDA has estimated the economic and financial benefits of one million acre-feet of water at $1 billion. That is a broad benchmark, not a formula for valuing every missed irrigation. It still raises an uncomfortable question: if water carries such economic significance, where is the economic account of its management?

The question is urgent. On October 6, the Indus River System Authority's Advisory Committee approved an anticipated shortage of 22 percent for Punjab and Sindh for the Rabi season against rim-station inflows of 21.268 million acre-feet. Storage on September 30 stood at 9.343 million acre-feet, against 13.214 a year earlier, a ten-year average of 9.938 and the committee's own anticipation of 12.014. WAPDA's daily report shows where the drawdown fell: Tarbela stood at 4.236 million acre-feet, 18 percent below its five-year average, while Mangla, the larger of the two reservoirs since its dam raising, held within 3 percent of its average at 5.095.

Sindh and Punjab produce most of Pakistan's wheat, and the next harvest is beginning under stress while consumers are already paying substantially more for flour.

In its September 2026 release, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics recorded annual food inflation of 8.2 percent. Wheat flour, however, was 31.7 percent dearer in urban markets and 34.3 percent in rural markets than a year earlier. The broader food index conceals the much sharper increase in a staple households must purchase repeatedly.

Imports can restrain prices and prevent a supply gap from becoming a deeper crisis, but financing them........

© Pakistan Today Profit