ISLAMABAD: PTI Kissan Wing Central Information Secretary Khalid Nawaz Sadraich said on Sunday that the absence of officially designated private companies for wheat procurement in major wheat-producing hubs of small-scale farmers has triggered a wave of panic, leaving “growers vulnerable to middlemen purchasing harvests at throwaway prices”.

In a statement, Sadraich said that based on field reports gathered from different parts of Punjab, the provincial government’s designated private companies have marginalised small-scale farmers in the wheat procurement process, registering only 65,000 out of more than four million farmers despite two weeks of the purchasing drive.

He added that this situation was effectively forcing small farmers to sell their wheat at a loss.

“This may compel them [small farmers] to sell their ancestral land and abandon agriculture in search of alternative livelihoods.”

The PTI leader regretted that although small and medium-scale farmers produced more than double the wheat compared to large and influential landowners, the 11 government-mandated companies had completely sidelined them.

Published in Dawn, April 27th, 2026