Pakistan floods wipe out 60% of rice crop, threaten cotton, sugarcane harvests — business union

KARACHI:(Web News) Record monsoon floods have destroyed up to 60% of Pakistan’s rice crop and badly damaged sugarcane and cotton, industry groups warned this week, saying the devastation could derail production targets and weigh on the fragile economy.

Punjab province, Pakistan’s most populous and its main farming belt, has borne the brunt of the disaster of the latest monsoon spell that began late last month. According to figures from the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) released on Tuesday, 66 people have been killed, 21 million displaced or evacuated to safer areas, and around 1.95 million acres of farmland inundated after weeks of record monsoon rains across Punjab which have swelled the Chenab, Ravi and Sutlej rivers.

Floodwaters are now merging into the Indus in the southern province of Sindh, threatening farmland, villages and major towns. Releases from Indian dams on the Sutlej River have added to the flows, as authorities in New Delhi ease pressure on swollen reservoirs during heavy rains.

The scale of the inundation has raised alarm among farmers and industry groups, who warn that key national output goals are now under threat.

For cropping season 2025-26, Pakistan’s Federal Committee on Agriculture has set output goals of 9.17 million tons of rice, 9.7 million tons of maize, 80.3 million tons of sugarcane and 10.2 million bales of cotton. But flooding in Punjab has left those targets “in jeopardy,” according to the Pakistan Business Forum (PBF).

“This crisis must be treated as a wake-up call to reform our agricultural strategies,” PBF President Khawaja Mehboob ur Rehman told Arab News. “We must stop viewing floods purely as disasters and start managing them as resources.”