A wheat field can look healthy one week and begin to wither under an unexpected heat spell the next. A sudden downpour can turn a standing crop into a flooded field. And when the rains fail, a farmer may have little choice but to watch the soil dry and the harvest shrink. Across Pakistan, climate change is turning these once-unusual shocks into a growing part of the farming calendar.

Pakistan’s agriculture is increasingly being shaped by rising temperatures, changing rainfall, water stress, floods and drought. These pressures affect when farmers plant, how much water crops require and how much they can harvest. Agriculture remains central to the country’s economy and rural livelihoods, contributing 23.54 percent of GDP and employing more than 37 percent of the labour force in FY2025. Yet the farmers most exposed to climate shocks are not always those with the financial and institutional resources to adapt. Pakistan Economic Survey 2024–25

For a small farmer, adapting to climate change can mean finding money for heat- or drought-tolerant seeds, investing in more efficient irrigation, changing planting dates or finding ways to protect crops and livestock from extreme weather. When a climate shock destroys a harvest, however, it can also wipe out the income needed to make those investments in the first place.

Pakistan has introduced policies and programmes aimed to strenthen agricultural resilience, including climate-resilient crops, improved water management, agricultural finance, extension services and climate information. But this raises a more fundamental question: if adaptation support exists, can the small farmers who need it most actually access it?

This blog examines how climate change is reshaping Pakistan’s agriculture, why small farmers face particular constraints, what adaptation support is available, and where gaps remain between support on paper and resilience on the farm.

The shocks are already serious

The pressure shows up in several places at once.

In wheat-growing areas, a 2026 study using 41 years of data from Islamabad and Chakwal found seasonal warming of about 0.40°C per decade in Islamabad. It linked warming with shorter wheat development periods and declining yields, and found that later sowing under warmer conditions was associated with substantial yield losses.

In Sindh, 2022 brought heat and drought followed by floods. Local officials described consecutive extreme events within a single season. By December, cotton arrivals had fallen 49 percent in Sindh, against 32 percent in Punjab. Nationally, the Post-Disaster Needs Assessment put the floods at more than US$14.9 billion in damages and US$15.2 billion in economic losses. One study estimated that around 4.41 million acres of farmland were damaged.

Livestock, often a household’s savings and insurance in one, was hit hard too. Data from the National Disaster Management Authority showed more than 800,000 animals lost by late August 2022, including about 500,000 in Balochistan.

These figures cannot tell us how much of each loss is due to climate change alone. Cotton, for example, is also shaped by input costs, prices and farmers switching to other crops. But they show how quickly one season can strip a smallholder of crops, animals and the means to recover.

Why small farmers have fewer options

Exposure alone does not determine vulnerability. What matters is what a farmer can do about it, and that depends on credit, land, information and institutions.

On credit, recent research found that only 36 percent of surveyed farmers had access to formal loans, with greater constraints for small and marginal farmers. On information, research in Pakistan has found that access to extension and climate advice influences whether farmers adopt adaptation practices. A farmer may know the weather is changing and still not know which variety to sow or how to manage water.

Land tenure adds another layer. Tenants may not fit systems built around ownership and land records, and they have little reason to invest in improvements that outlast a single season. Even newer schemes reflect the divide: under Zarkhez-e, the maximum loan for tenants is half that for landowners.

For women, the barriers stack

Women do much of Pakistan’s farm and livestock work, yet they meet every barrier above and more. According to 2018 survey data, between 96.7 and 99.5 percent of rural women in Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan did not own land. Most work land is held by male relatives or others, which matters because formal credit and support schemes often rely on ownership. Only 5.3 percent of rural women in Punjab, 1.6 percent in Sindh and 0.9 percent in Balochistan owned and used a bank account, and loans, insurance payouts and digital schemes such as Zarkhez-e all depend on having one.

The effects show up when disaster strikes. After the 2010 floods, a crop insurance scheme could be claimed only by farmers who owned land, capped at 25 acres. Because most rural women do not own the land they work, they stand to gain nothing from it.

Extension services have also mostly served male farmers, leaving women with less advice on new seeds or practices. A 2026 study by SDPI and Mobilink Bank, covering eight districts of Punjab and Sindh, found many women farmers borrowing to cope with climate shocks while still lacking formal financial services. When land and bank accounts are the entry ticket, women are often turned away before they apply.

Pakistan has support. The problem is reaching the farm

The money is growing. According to the Economic Survey 2025–26, agricultural financing reached Rs2,161.6 billion in July–March FY2026, and lending to small farms rose 47.2 percent to nearly Rs320 billion. The State Bank has also introduced targeted tools:

• A Risk Coverage Scheme for Small Farmers and Underserved Areas, which aims to support 750,000 new borrowers by FY2028.
• Zarkhez-e, a digital, collateral-free loan of up to Rs1 million, with most of it disbursed as inputs and paired with advisory services.
• A Climate Risk Fund under the microfinance project, offering liquidity support after climate shocks.

Development programmes add to this, such as the World Bank’s Punjab Resilient and Inclusive Agriculture Transformation Project, approved in 2022 with an expected reach of about 190,000 small farms.

But look at the borrowers, not the rupees. The number of outstanding agricultural borrowers stood at 2.96 million in March 2026, up only 1.2 percent. The State Bank governor himself called the rise in borrowers in the first half of FY2026 modest and urged banks to use the new schemes more fully. More money is being lent, but not yet to many more farmers.

What we cannot see

None of this proves that the new schemes are failing. Zarkhez-e was launched only in October 2025, and it takes time for schemes to reach farmers. But we could not find published figures on how many small farmers, tenants or women have received support under the newest schemes, or in which districts. That absence matters, because without those numbers no one can tell whether support is reaching those most exposed.

Digital lending may also spare farmers a trip to the bank, but it still asks them to navigate apps and documentation. Climate information can arrive on time and still be useless to a farmer who cannot afford the inputs to act on it.

The real test of adaptation

Pakistan has policies, credit schemes and development projects. The country has also shown that targeted support is possible: livestock shelters have been built in Sindh, and some pilots pair livestock loans with insurance that pays out after disasters. The persistent problem is the distance between these efforts and the experience of an ordinary smallholder.

That gap can be bridged. Finance can be structured to focus on tenants and women, rather than solely on landowners. Extension and climate recommendations can be useful and specific to the area. Animal protection can coexist with crop assistance. Most importantly, institutions can disclose who is genuinely reached: the number of farmers, the specific districts, how many women and tenants, and if the assistance resulted in more resilient farming practices.

Adaptation cannot be evaluated through budgets or statements. It must be assessed on the farm by inquiring: can a small farmer secure the funding, knowledge, technology, and services required to adapt to a changing climate? The farmer whose narrative is included in a policy document should have an equal opportunity for recovery as the farmer whose loss remains unnoted.

About the Author:

Abeeha Rana is Project Associate at Accountability Lab Pakistan and can be reached at abeeha@accountabilitylab.org