Pakistan’s farmers battle floods, debt and climate-driven crisis

Islamabad, Pakistan – As a caller question of cloudbursts, monsoon rains and floods cause havoc crossed Pakistan, Iqbal Solangi sits successful his tiny location successful the confederate coastal metropolis of Karachi, feeling the symptom of those who mislaid their loved ones, onshore and livestock.

Since precocious June, a heavier-than-usual monsoon, followed by floods and landslides, has killed much than 800 people, damaged astatine slightest 7,225 houses, and washed distant implicit 5,500 livestock successful summation to the wide demolition of crops crossed the country.

While the nonstop origin of the floods is yet to beryllium determined, respective factors could person contributed to the deluge, including clime change. Pakistan ranks among the apical 10 astir climate-vulnerable nations, but it contributes little than 1 percent of planetary emissions.

Solangi had ended his climate-change-forced exile from farming successful 2022, but ended up losing his atom harvest owed to the flooding for a 3rd clip aft the 2010 and 2012 floods, and recovered himself nether a immense heap of indebtedness yet again.

In 2012, helium had moved from a tiny colony connected the borderline of the Sindh and Balochistan provinces to Karachi due to the fact that clime alteration had made the assemblage of his forefathers unsustainable. The displacement brought to a impermanent extremity 3 decades of farming.

“When my location and onshore were flooded and I was sitting precocious up watching it each being washed away, I decided I would ne'er spell backmost to it,” Solangi told Al Jazeera, talking astir the 2022 floods, which affected 33 cardinal radical and inundated 4 cardinal hectares (9.9 cardinal acres) of cultivation land.

Locals cod wood from Noseri Dam adjacent Muzaffarabad a time aft flash floods [File: Sajjad Qayyum/AFP]

The Climate Rate Index study successful 2025 placed Pakistan astatine the apical of the database of the astir affected countries based connected 2022 data. Extensive flooding past submerged astir a 3rd of the country, killed much than 1,700 people, caused $14.8bn worthy of damage, arsenic good arsenic $15.2bn of economical losses, and pushed 9 cardinal radical into poverty.

In an nonfiction successful August, Pakistan’s Dawn paper wrote: “In today’s Pakistan, the monsoon has transformed from a awesome of quality and renewal into a harbinger of chaos and despair. What was erstwhile awaited with excitement is present approached with dread.”

Last year, much floods affected thousands, and a heatwave killed astir 600 people. The gradual emergence successful temperatures is besides forcing the melting of the 13,000-plus glaciers successful Pakistan, expanding the hazard of flooding, harm to infrastructure, nonaccomplishment of beingness and land, menace to communities, and h2o scarcity.

Agriculture remains a cardinal contributor to Pakistan’s economy, contributing astir 24 percent of its gross home merchandise (GDP), according to Pakistan’s Bureau of Statistics (PBS). The livelihood of immoderate 40 cardinal radical is besides linked with agriculture, which employs much than 37 percent of the labour force.

In an interview with Al Jazeera earlier this year, Pakistan’s clime alteration curate warned that the effect of melting glaciers connected the stream and canal networks “would person catastrophic consequences for Pakistan’s cultivation economy”.

“These radical [working connected agriculture] person nary economical security, and fixed our existent economical improvement stage, the authorities lacks the wherewithal to supply for specified a ample conception of the colonisation if these gushing floods lavation distant our infrastructure and devastate cultivation lands. From an economical and cultivation standpoint alone, the imaginable for devastation is immense,” Musadiq Malik said.

This year, the agriculture assemblage has posted a humble maturation of 0.6 percent, falling good abbreviated of the 2 percent people and importantly beneath past year’s announced maturation of 6.4 percent.

A caller survey published successful the Nature diary says the Indus Plain successful Pakistan experienced 19 flood disasters betwixt 1950 and 2012, affecting an country of astir 600,000sq km (231,661.3sq miles), causing 11,239 deaths and resulting successful economical harm exceeding $39bn. Half of those events took spot aft 2000.

Figures shared by PBS amusement a emergence successful the fig of farmlands crossed Pakistan implicit the past fewer years, from 8.6 cardinal successful 2010 to 11.7 cardinal past year, expanding successful each provinces barroom Punjab. However, changes successful rainfall patterns person besides impacted farmers immensely.

In the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Basharat Jamal inactive tills his onshore but says his harvest has astir vanished implicit the past decennary owed to droughts.

Jamal runs a tiny concern to supplement his income but explains that the displacement from cultivation practices has landed the portion successful treble jeopardy. The income and nutrient person reduced significantly, with galore farmers moving to municipality centres for work. In addition, immoderate farmers present ain livestock, which, owed to a deficiency of fodder, destruct their unprotected crops.

According to the Pakistan Economic Survey 2024-25, large crops, specified arsenic wheat and cotton, contracted by 13.5 percent, restricting the wide GDP maturation complaint by 0.6 percent.

Farming present is similar ‘gambling with nature’

For Muhammad Hashim, a husbandman successful Pakistan’s largest province, Balochistan, farming successful an unpredictable clime is “like gambling with nature” owed to the predominant floods and droughts that person forced him to migrate aggregate times.

He has stuck to farming contempt “watching helplessly our crops withering and failing twelvemonth aft year”.

“Ten years ago, we had nary prime but to permission our ancestral onshore and migrate successful hunt of survival,” said Hashim. “Then came the devastating floods of 2022. Everything we had rebuilt was washed away. Our fields were destroyed again. The adjacent year, we moved again. For a little time, we recovered immoderate peace.

“I worked connected my workplace and astatine a shop. Our children were backmost successful school, and beingness started to consciousness normal.”

According to the Migration Policy Institute, much than 8 cardinal radical were displaced by the 2022 floods, including farmers who gave up connected their lands and moved to cities.

A United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) study connected the 2022 floods said: “2022 volition beryllium remembered arsenic a critical, trying twelvemonth for Pakistan, with increasing macroeconomic and fiscal concerns, a outgo of surviving situation impacting the astir vulnerable, and cataclysmic floods whose threats were multiplied by clime change.”

However, soon after, drought forced him to determination again, but the “situation is worse than ever”.

“One twelvemonth it’s floods, the adjacent it’s drought,” helium said, adding that if this signifier continued, his farming days would beryllium over.

This communicative was produced successful concern with the Pulitzer Center.