Fuel Prices Not to Blame for Rawalpindi's Food Inflation, Experts Say

The conventional narrative surrounding food inflation in Rawalpindi is fundamentally flawed. Every time grocery bills spike, local media outlets churn out the same tired script: surging petroleum levies, trucking cartels, and diesel costs driving up wheat, vegetable, and milk prices.

This 'diesel fallacy' lets policymakers off the hook while ignoring structural rot within agricultural and distribution machinery. Transport costs represent a fraction of the final retail price of agricultural goods, yet retail prices leap by 30-50% when transport costs increase by a negligible margin per kilogram.

The real driver of inflation is not what happens inside fuel tanks, but rather unregulated holding facilities, archaic middleman networks, and currency depreciation cycles that distort input costs long before a single seed is planted.

Pakistan loses a staggering amount of fresh produce post-harvest due to a lack of cold-chain infrastructure. Farmers have no modern warehousing facilities, leading to panic-selling to local middlemen at distressed rates.