16 October 2026, Lahore: Pakistan’s largest farmer alliance is preparing to bring tens of thousands of growers onto the streets across all four provinces on October 18, in one of the country’s largest agricultural mobilisations this year. The Pakistan Kisan Rabita Committee (PKRC), a federation of 36 farmer organisations, announced the nationwide protest call on October 7 from Lahore, accusing the government of pursuing policies it says are hollowing out farm incomes.
The alliance’s central demands are specific and numerical. It wants the wheat minimum support price fixed at Rs 5,000 per maund, announced before sowing begins so growers can judge whether cultivation is financially viable at all. It also wants an end to the government’s recent shift toward private wheat procurement, arguing that leaving purchases to private traders exposes farmers to price uncertainty, and it is demanding a return to full state buying through the Pakistan Agricultural Storage and Services Corporation (PASSCO) and provincial food departments. For sugarcane growers, PKRC is seeking a support price of Rs 700 per 40 kg, along with strict government oversight to ensure mills pay growers on time.
The committee, led by president Tariq Mahmood and general secretary Riffat Maqsood, has also called for subsidised farm inputs, easier credit for small and medium growers, and a formal seat for farmer representatives in agricultural policymaking. PKRC’s information secretary, Hasnain Jameel Faridi, issued the list of demands, and the group has asked the government to open talks before October 18 rather than wait for the demonstrations to begin. As of this week, no government response had been reported.
Rising input costs behind the anger
The protest call did not emerge overnight. PKRC and its member groups, which include Anjuman Mazareen Punjab, Pakistan Kisan Ittehad, the Sindh Hari Committee and several smaller bodies, have been building a nationwide campaign since at least April, when demonstrations were held in more than 100 cities across Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan to mark the International Day of Peasants’ Struggles. At that point, the wheat price demand stood at Rs 4,000 per maund, a figure the alliance has since raised by a quarter as input costs climbed further.
PKRC president Tariq Mahmood summed up the grievance in blunt terms, saying a farmer spends heavily on seeds, fertiliser, pesticides and diesel while guarding the crop day and night, only to see those costs eaten up by weak and unpredictable returns. Central leader Farooq Tariq has separately warned that farm policy drawn up without consulting the people who actually work the land will ultimately fail to secure the country’s food supply. In July, the group also criticised a government decision to import a million tonnes of wheat, which it argued undercut domestic growers at a time when local prices were already under pressure, and it renewed calls for charges to be dropped against farm leaders detained during the April protests.
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