Glut averted as middlemen, investors lift wheat piles

THE air in the Hafizabad Galla Mandi, usually thick with the happy dust of a bountiful harvest, felt str­angely thin. Fewer trucks rumbled through the gateway than expected. The usual cacophony of haggling voices was muted, replaced by pockets of anxious murmuring. In the absence of major players like the Punjab and federal governments, most people like Yusuf expected a glut of wheat in the market. Instead, the piles of golden grains were noticeably smaller, scattered like hesitant guests at a wedding. “Where has the crop gone?” Yusuf, who has come from a neighbouring district to buy wheat for his large family at a fairly lower rate, asks a commission agent (arhti) in a raspy voice. Shrugging his shoulders, he replies that local investors are to be blamed for sweeping away whatever grain came to the market.