Food Security & Ports

This year Louis Dreyfus Company (LDC) inaugurated a grain storage facility in Multan, Pakistan adding approximately 40,000 tonnes of capacity in Pakistan’s important wheat-producing region , achieving the distinction of the global agricultural merchant’s first owned industrial site in the country.

Fallacy of Food Security

Pakistan’s agriculture , logistics and maritime supply chain does not lack the production of grain rather it lacks the infrastructure that allows grain to survive the journey from the field to global markets , being loaded and unloaded at ports. While the United States Department of Agriculture’s latest estimate place Pakistan’s 2026–27 wheat crop at around 29.6 million tonnes the LDC’s 40,000 tonnes amount to roughly 0.14 % of annual grain production. Despite this, the new facility is substantial enough to matter within LDC’s South Punjab operations yet minuscule to alter Pakistan’s storage equation on its own. Ukrainian Ports in the Black Sea have massive grain silos at its ports and maintain a global wheat and grain supply chains .

Investment or Indictment

Such an investment can be termed as an indictment. The agriculture food supply chains depicts that farmer grows the crop, the miller processes it and the consumer buys the flour. Behind the scenes is the process of drying, grading, insuring, financing, tracking and storing grain supposed to add financial value . Grain silos ensure transparency in the supply chain .The trucking mafia prevails as the lack of silos at the grain producing regions as well at the ports results in price volatility and compromising Pakistan’s ” Food Security “. Private parties have established some small scale volume silos at Port Qasim PQA estate. Karachi Port Trust (KPT) does not have any silos at present and the emphasis is on unjustified , illegal and anti environmental reclamation of the coastline by local estate mafias.

Credit;Profit

Digital Warehousing

The KPT has 35 sq. km of estate and PQA around 11,000 acres of storage , as per federal statute . Yet no digital warehousing is being established at the port estates for grain or energy storage . Ideally Inland Waterways ports should establish silos .There is little clarity whether an ordinary farmer can deposit wheat in the company’s silo and obtain an electronic warehouse receipt or borrow against it or use as collateral for bank financing. It remains doubtful if the facility will be accredited for Third-Party storage or Third Party access .The regulatory authorities need to intervene and establish a grain storage policy in the national food security interest. Presently Pakistan grain storage mechanism revolves around a collection of unrelated warehouses , even the storage by provincial department is in the open exposed to the vagaries of the weather and rodents . Grain silos can store and preserve upto three years.

Twin Fallacy of Revenues

Credit ;ICSTI

Ports at Karachi operate under federal statutes and own significant areas of prime estate and in the territorial waters as well . The revenue including Income tax , Sales tax and Customs is collected at source online and digitally when vessels berth and load or unload cargoes including containers . At times the cargoes and containers are transported to bonded and dry ports acroass the lenght and breadth of the country . How correct is the claim that Karachi accounts for the major FBR source of revenue of the country and it is not getting its due share in return , under the constitutional National Finance Commission (NFC)  award ? Is such a claim justified for the coastal and port city Karachi to acquire the status of a province ? Needs threadbare and non partisan analysis rather then sensationalism .