Is growing sugarcane drying us out?
Pakistan's agriculture is facing a crisis that is neither sudden nor mysterious. It is the predictable result of a long-standing mismatch between what the country grows and what its climate, soils and water resources can realistically support. For decades, Pakistan's crop choices were shaped by a world of abundant canal flows, stable weather and a political economy that rewarded acreage rather than efficiency. That world is gone. Yet our cropping patterns remain frozen in time, even as the climate around us changes at a pace our policies refuse to acknowledge.
The result is a slow-motion agricultural breakdown – one that threatens food security, rural livelihoods and the national economy.
Pakistan now has less than 900 cubic metres of water per person, placing it firmly in the category of water-scarce nations. Groundwater levels are falling across Punjab and Sindh. Heatwaves arrive earlier and last longer. Monsoons have become erratic, swinging between drought and catastrophic flooding. Soils are losing fertility due to overuse of urea and poor crop rotation. And yet, despite all this, Pakistan continues to allocate vast tracts of land to water-hungry, low-value crops that no longer make sense in this new ecological reality.
The most glaring example is sugarcane. It is one of the thirstiest crops on earth, consuming four to five times more water than cotton, pulses or oilseeds. In a country struggling to meet basic irrigation needs, sugarcane should be a niche crop grown only in areas with abundant water. Instead, it occupies prime land in Punjab and Sindh, not because it is agronomically suitable, but because the sugar industry is politically powerful. The crop drains aquifers, worsens salinity and locks farmers into a low-value cycle. Yet every year, more land is brought under sugarcane, even as Pakistan's water crisis deepens.
Rice is another example of a crop that has outgrown its ecological welcome. Producing a single kilogram of rice requires 2,5003,000 litres of water. In canal-rich pockets of central Punjab, rice can be justified. But in much of Sindh and south Punjab, rice cultivation depends heavily on tubewells, accelerating groundwater depletion. Climate change has made rice yields increasingly volatile, with heat stress and erratic rainfall reducing productivity. Despite this, rice acreage continues to expand because it is seen as a reliable export earner – even though the hidden cost is the silent exhaustion of Pakistan's water reserves.
Wheat, the backbone of Pakistan's food security, is grown everywhere – including in marginal, arid zones where it performs poorly and consumes scarce water that could be used for higher-value crops. Wheat is essential, but its blanket cultivation is not. Pakistan's fixation on wheat acreage, rather than wheat productivity, has created a system where farmers are encouraged to grow wheat even in areas where it makes neither economic nor ecological sense.
Cotton, once Pakistan's "white gold," has suffered a dramatic decline. Heatwaves, pest attacks and outdated seed technology have devastated yields. The collapse of cotton has forced Pakistan to import billions of dollars' worth of raw cotton, undermining the textile sector – the country's largest export engine. Yet instead of investing in heat-tolerant, pest-resistant cotton varieties, policy attention has drifted elsewhere.
The tragedy is not that Pakistan lacks alternatives. The tragedy is that Pakistan refuses to adopt them. These are the crop alternatives that warrant urgent policy attention:
Oilseeds – including canola, mustard, sunflower and soybean – require far less water than sugarcane or rice. They fit well in Punjab and Sindh and could dramatically reduce Pakistan's edible oil import bill, which now exceeds $4 billion annually. Yet oilseeds remain marginal because support prices and procurement systems overwhelmingly favour wheat and sugarcane.
Pulses – moong, mash and masoor – are ideally suited to Pakistan's arid and semi-arid zones. They require minimal water, improve soil fertility by fixing nitrogen and have strong domestic demand. Despite this, Pakistan imports 80% of its pulses because farmers are not incentivised to grow them. A country with millions of hectares of dryland agriculture should not be importing the very crops best suited to its climate.
Millets and sorghum – bajra and jowar – are among the most climate-resilient crops in the world. They thrive in heat, drought and poor soils. They are ideal for regions like Thar, Cholistan, Dera Ghazi Khan, Dadu and much of Balochistan. Yet they remain neglected because they do not fit into the political economy of support prices and mill-based procurement. In a hotter, drier Pakistan, millets should be central to food security, not an afterthought.
Horticulture – fruits, vegetables and chillies – offers five to ten times the per acre income of wheat or sugarcane, with far lower water requirements. Mangoes, citrus, dates, guava, onions, tomatoes and potatoes all have strong domestic and export potential. But horticulture requires cold chains, storage and market access – areas where Pakistan has chronically underinvested.
Fodder crops – maize silage and Rhodes grass – are water-efficient and characterised by high productivity. Bear in mind that livestock contributes 63% of agricultural GDP in Pakistan – far more than wheat, rice, cotton and sugarcane combined. Yet fodder crops, which determine the productivity of livestock, receive almost no policy attention, no support prices, no research investment and no serious extension services. This mismatch is one of the biggest blind spots in Pakistan's agricultural policy.
The core problem is not agronomic. It is political. Pakistan's agricultural policies reward acreage, not efficiency. They reward water-intensive crops, not climate-resilient ones. They reward politically connected industries, not national food security. The result is a cropping pattern that drains water, degrades soil and traps farmers in low-value cycles.
If Pakistan wants a sustainable agricultural future, it must realign its crop choices with its ecological realities. That means reducing sugarcane acreage, limiting rice to canal-rich zones, shifting wheat out of marginal lands, reviving climate-resilient cotton and aggressively promoting oilseeds, pulses, millets, horticulture and fodder.
The choice is stark. Pakistan can continue pouring its limited water into crops that drain the economy and degrade the land. Or it can embrace a new crop mix that conserves water, improves soil health, reduces imports and increases farmer incomes.
The old cropping system was built for a different climate, a different water system and a different era. That era is over. Pakistan must choose whether its agriculture will adapt – or collapse under the weight of its own contradictions.
THE WRITER IS CHAIRMAN OF MUSTAQBIL PAKISTAN. HE HOLDS AN MBA FROM HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL