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6 min readBy Mehran YusufThe short answer
When someone asks what wheat costs in Pakistan, there are three honest answers and they are not the same number. There is the government support price, announced per 40 kg maund and set before the harvest. There is the mandi rate, which is what a grower is actually paid and which moves daily. And there is the retail price of a bag of atta, which is the mandi rate plus milling, plus the bag, plus the shop. We grow wheat and mill part of it ourselves, so we see all three from the inside.
Wheat and atta rates
Gandum is wheat grain, sold by the 40 kg maund; atta is the flour milled from it, sold by the kilo or the bag. The two are quoted in different units by different people, and comparing them directly is the commonest mistake made on this subject — a maund rate divided by forty is not an atta price, because milling, bagging and the miller's margin all sit in between.
Ranges below, with the source of each figure named, because a mandi rate and a retail bag price get quoted interchangeably in news coverage and they are nothing alike. Provincial differences are real and large — wheat and atta do not cost the same in Sindh and Punjab in the same week.
| Item | Farm gate / mandi | Retail | Ours | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wheat, government support price†گندم امدادی قیمتAnnounced per 40 kg maund, before the season. A floor, not what everyone gets. | — | ₨3,900 – 4,300 / 40 kg | We don’t sell this | National average |
| Wheat, mandi rate (Sindh)†گندم منڈی ریٹCan sit below the support price in a good harvest, which is when the floor matters | — | ₨3,000 – 3,800 / 40 kg | We don’t sell this | Local mandi |
| Wheat, farm gate (our crop)†گندم فارم گیٹWhat our own wheat fetches at the gate | ₨2,900 – 3,600 / 40 kg | — | We don’t sell this | Our farm |
| Chakki atta (stone-milled)†چکی آٹاAlso sold in 10 kg and 20 kg bags. Ours is single-farm wheat, not a blend. | — | ₨120 – 165 / kg | ₨1,050 / 5 kg bagOrder from us | Our farm |
| Roller-mill atta, 20 kg bag†بیس کلو آٹاThe bag most households actually buy. Varies by province. | — | ₨2,100 – 2,800 / 20 kg bag | We don’t sell this | National average |
| Fine flour (maida)†میدہ | — | ₨130 – 180 / kg | We don’t sell this | National average |
| Roller-mill atta, 10 kg bag†آٹا ۱۰ کلوPer-kilo the 10 kg bag sits above the 20 kg and below loose. | — | ₨1,250 – 1,800 / 10 kg | We don’t sell this | National average |
| Roller-mill atta, 5 kg bag†آٹا ۵ کلوThe most expensive way to buy atta per kilo, and the way most single households buy it. | — | ₨680 – 950 / 5 kg | We don’t sell this | National average |
| Black wheat (kala gandum)†کالا گندمA niche high-anthocyanin wheat sold at a large premium over ordinary wheat. Yields are lower; the premium is not all marketing. | — | ₨7,000 – 14,000 / 40 kg | We don’t sell this | National average |
| Wheat bran (choker)†چوکرThe milling by-product. Sold as feed, and the reason roller-mill atta costs less than chakki atta per kilo. | — | ₨55 – 90 / kg | We don’t sell this | National average |
† Indicative. These rows are compiled from market knowledge and trade rates rather than checked by us this month, and we are working through them. Rows without the mark are either our own transactions or figures we have verified directly — that distinction is the point of publishing this at all, so we would rather show it than quietly average the two together.
These are ranges we observe, not fixed prices: rates move with city, season and quality, and a farm-gate figure is never what you pay at a shop counter. Where we sell the item ourselves, the price shown is the one you are charged at checkout.
Support price, mandi rate, retail bag: how they connect
The support price is a floor the government announces so growers can plan a sowing. It is stated per 40 kg maund, which is why converting it to a per-kilo figure produces the odd-looking numbers you see quoted. It is not what everyone gets — it is what the procurement centres pay, and reaching one is its own exercise.
The mandi rate is the real market. It sits above or below the support price depending on the harvest, on how much has been imported, and on how much is being held back in storage. In a good year with open imports it can fall under the support price, which is precisely when the floor matters.
The bag on your street adds everything that happens after the grain leaves the mandi: transport, milling, the loss between grain weight and flour weight, the bag itself, and a shop's margin. That is a genuine chain of costs, not a markup — but it is why a rise in the mandi rate takes a few weeks to show up in the atta price, and why the atta price rarely falls as fast as the grain price does.
Bag sizes: why 5 kg costs more per kilo than 20 kg
Atta is one of the few foods in Pakistan where the pack size changes the per-kilo price enough to matter to a household budget. The 20 kg bag is the standard family unit and the cheapest way to buy milled flour; 10 kg sits above it; the 5 kg bag is the dearest per kilo by a clear margin and is what a single person or a small household actually buys. The difference is packaging and handling rather than a different flour — in most cases it is the same flour from the same mill.
Prices also differ province to province in a way they do not for most goods, because provincial governments intervene in the wheat and flour market directly. Procurement, release from government stocks to mills, and subsidised bag schemes have all been used, and they are not applied uniformly. A 20 kg bag in Lahore, Karachi and Peshawar can sit meaningfully apart for reasons that are administrative rather than agricultural, and Karachi in particular runs on wheat brought in rather than grown alongside it, so its atta usually prices above the Punjab.
Below the flour sits choker, the bran taken out during roller milling and sold as animal feed. That by-product revenue is exactly why roller-mill atta can be sold for less per kilo than chakki atta, which keeps the whole grain in the bag.
When wheat is harvested, and what that does to the price
Wheat is a rabi crop: sown from October to December and harvested from March in Sindh through to May in the upper Punjab. Our own crop goes in around November and comes off in March, several weeks ahead of the north, which is why the national harvest looks longer than any one farm's does.
The price follows that calendar predictably. Rates are lowest in the weeks immediately after the local harvest, when everyone's grain reaches the mandi at once and small growers with nowhere to store it have to sell. They climb through the year as stocks deplete and peak in the months before the next harvest. That annual cycle is the reason a support price is announced ahead of the season at all: it puts a floor under the moment when growers have least ability to wait, which is precisely when the market would otherwise be at its worst for them.
Chakki atta and roller-mill flour are different products
A chakki grinds between stones, slowly, and the whole grain goes in and comes out — bran, germ and all. The germ carries the oil, which is where the nutty taste comes from and also why chakki atta does not keep as long: those oils go rancid within weeks, faster in Sindh's heat. Buying it in a 20 kg sack and using it over three months defeats the point.
A roller mill separates the grain into its parts at high speed and recombines a defined portion of them. It is efficient, it is consistent bag to bag, and the flour keeps far longer because most of the germ has been removed. That shelf life is a real advantage in national distribution, and it is why the vast majority of atta sold in Pakistan is roller-milled.
We mill our own wheat in small batches for the same reason we sell fish netted to order: it is the version of the product that does not survive a long supply chain, so it is the one worth selling direct. It is not automatically the better buy. If you go through a sack slowly, roller-mill atta will treat you better than ours will.
Why the wheat price moves the way it does
Wheat is a Rabi crop here — sown around November and December, harvested in March and April. Prices are usually softest at harvest, when everyone is selling at once and storage is full, and firmest in the months before the next one. Anyone quoting a wheat price without saying when it was taken is telling you very little.
The other lever is policy rather than weather: procurement targets, release from government stocks, and import decisions all move this market more sharply than a bad month of rain does. That is unusual among the crops on this site, and it is why the wheat table carries a review date more prominently than most.
Common questions
- What is the wheat price in Pakistan today?
- There are three different prices and it matters which you mean: the announced support price per 40 kg maund, the mandi rate a grower is actually paid, and the retail price of a bag of atta. The table above carries each separately with the date it was last checked. Any site giving you a single 'wheat price today' has flattened three different numbers into one.
- Why is the atta price higher than the wheat price?
- Because milling, transport, the loss between grain and flour weight, the bag and a shop's margin all sit between them. It is also why atta prices lag the grain market by a few weeks in both directions.
- Is chakki atta better than roller-mill atta?
- It is different. Chakki atta keeps the germ, so it tastes nuttier and carries more of the grain's oil — and for the same reason it goes rancid within weeks in the heat. Roller-mill atta keeps far longer. If you get through a bag slowly, the roller-mill product is genuinely the better choice.
- Why is wheat quoted per 40 kg?
- Because the maund is still the working unit in the grain trade and in government announcements. Converting to per-kilo is what produces the odd decimal figures you see in news reports.
- What is the gandum rate in Pakistan today?
- Gandum — wheat grain — is quoted per 40 kg maund, and three different numbers circulate: the government support price, the mandi rate, and the farm-gate price. The table above separates them with the date each was checked. Do not divide a maund rate by forty to get an atta price; milling, bagging and the miller's margin sit in between.
- Why does a 5 kg bag of atta cost more per kilo than a 20 kg bag?
- Packaging and handling rather than a different flour — in most cases it is the same flour from the same mill. The 20 kg bag is the cheapest way to buy milled atta per kilo and the 5 kg bag is the dearest.
- When is wheat harvested in Pakistan?
- March to April in Sindh and April to May in the Punjab, sown the previous October to December. Rates are lowest in the weeks just after the local harvest, when growers with nowhere to store the crop all sell at once, and climb through the year until the next one.
- Do you sell wheat grain as well as atta?
- We grow wheat and mill part of the crop into chakki atta, which is what we sell online. Grain in quantity is a wholesale conversation — call the farm and we will tell you honestly whether we have any uncommitted.
