ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan fertilizer prices are squeezing farmers just as the country’s wheat market swings from one policy regime to another, leaving many growers with less working capital for balanced crop nutrition, April 8, 2026. The outcome is a familiar but dangerous pattern: farmers keep applying nitrogen where they can, cut back on more expensive phosphate and potash, and carry a weaker nutrient mix into the next crop.
Pakistan fertilizer prices and the cash-flow squeeze
That pressure is visible in the government’s own Fertilizer Review 2024-25, which says total nutrient offtake fell 9.7 percent in 2024-25 and links the decline to poor farm economics caused by low wheat prices. The same review shows how lopsided application still is: nitrogen accounted for 77.8 percent of nutrient offtake, phosphate 21.1 percent and potash just 1 percent. Average prices in the review were Rs4,571 per 50kg bag for urea and Rs12,068 for DAP, and the official outlook for 2025-26 still expects DAP demand to soften because of its high price.
Even where supply is available, affordability remains the real problem. A March ministry update reported by Dawn put domestic urea at roughly Rs3,700 to Rs4,000 per 50kg bag and DAP at Rs11,500 to Rs12,500. Those are stable by recent standards, but they are not cheap for farmers whose last wheat crop was sold into a chaotic market.
External risk is building again, too. Reuters reported in March that the Strait of Hormuz carries about 30 percent of globally traded fertilizers and that some fertilizer prices were already up 30 percent to 40 percent because of the Iran war. Pakistan is better insulated in urea than in DAP, but any fresh jump in import costs still feeds directly into farmer sentiment and purchasing behavior.
That behavior is already turning cautious. A January market report carried by Profit said Pakistan’s urea offtake fell to about 218,000 tonnes, the lowest monthly level in more than six years. When growers begin delaying or trimming fertilizer purchases in a system that is already nitrogen-heavy, balanced application is usually the first casualty.
How wheat whiplash turned an input problem into a nutrient problem
The wheat side of the story explains why Pakistan fertilizer prices now feel heavier than the headline numbers alone suggest. The latest USDA Grain and Feed Annual for Pakistan says wheat prices slumped hard at the April 2025 harvest after a supply glut and the government’s decision to abandon the domestic support price and procurement from farmers. It then says prices rose 70 percent from July 2025 to February 2026, with domestic wheat prices in March 2026 running about 40 percent higher than a year earlier.
That kind of swing is brutal for input planning. Farmers need cash at sowing and early application, not after the market turns. So even if wheat prices recover later, the damage to working capital has often already been done. In practice, that encourages exactly the kind of nutrient compromise Pakistan has struggled with for years: keep buying urea, buy less DAP, and postpone anything that looks optional.
Pakistan fertilizer prices are not a one-season story
This did not begin in 2026. In November 2024, Arab News reported that reduced sowing expectations and weaker procurement were already prompting warnings of a major wheat shortfall, while farmers were asking for a clearer support price to justify planting. Then, in February 2025, Dawn reported that the federal government had abolished the traditional minimum support price for wheat as part of a broader shift away from state intervention. Those earlier moments matter because they show this year’s nutrient imbalance is not just about one expensive input cycle; it is the accumulated effect of repeated price shocks, policy reversals and eroded farmer confidence.
Until wheat policy becomes more predictable and phosphate affordability improves, the risk is that Pakistan fertilizer prices stop being just an input-cost problem and become a longer-term soil and yield problem.
