Pakistan is increasing its food imports against a backdrop of falling agricultural exports

Pakistan’s food trade deficit widened sharply in the 2025/26 financial year amid rising imports and falling agricultural exports. Food imports increased by 11.7% to $9.15 billion, while exports declined by 29.5% to $5.02 billion. As a result, the food trade deficit surged from $1.08 billion to $4.13 billion.

Palm oil remains the country’s largest food import item. Pakistan imported 3.48 mln tons of palm oil worth $3.8 billion during the year, accounting for more than 41% of its total food import bill. Palm oil import volumes increased by 8.4%.

The country’s heavy dependence on imported vegetable oils is increasing the need to develop domestic oilseed production. Rapeseed, sunflower seed and mustard have the potential to replace part of these imports, but their cultivation in Pakistan has yet to reach the scale required to significantly reduce the country’s dependence on imported oils.

At the same time, Pakistan’s position in the global rice market weakened. Rice export earnings fell by 31%, from $3.35 billion to $2.29 billion. Non-basmati rice recorded the steepest decline amid stronger competition following India’s return to the international market, while basmati exports remained relatively resilient.

Another sign of problems with domestic supply was the sharp increase in sugar imports, from just 3.5 thsd tons in the previous year to almost 310 thsd tons. Overall, the figures point to Pakistan’s growing dependence on food imports amid high production costs, low agricultural productivity and weakening competitiveness in some of its traditional export markets.

Tags: Pakistan, imports