You must have seen them during long drives across the country, rows of plastic sheets covering the fields, like something out of a low-budget dystopian film. But they are actually part of a protected farming ecosystem that accounts for 60 percent of the economic value in the global vegetable market.
Tunnel farming falls under the broader umbrella of controlled environment agriculture. It utilizes the principle of heat trapping and vegetable forcing, which means manipulating the environment to promote off-season vegetable growth.
In Pakistan, the most widely adopted form has been polyplastic, unheated tunnels where crops are grown under sheets without artificial climate control.
For more than two decades, these plastic-covered rows have been the most visible attempts to modernize the agriculture sector in Pakistan. It promised to change the economics of a sector that brings a quarter of the GDP and nearly 70 percent of exports.
The Growth Phase
Zarai Tarqayati Bank Ltd and other research institutions published the earliest studies around the feasibility of tunnel farming in Pakistan in the mid-80s, but concluded it was too expensive and hard to scale in Pakistan.
“In 1998, the first system was brought from Dubai and established near Bedian Road on two kanals of land in what can be widely regarded as the first successful tunnel farm. The model was replicated the following year across four farms across the country, including operations linked to Sitara Chemicals, Haji Sons Group, Famous Progressive Grower Mian Shauqat and Green Circle in Faisalabad,” recalled Sajid Iqbal Sandhu, Founder & CEO of Green Circle, talking to ProPakistani.
Green Circle has been one of the leading companies providing tunnel farming equipment, seeds and advisory farming across the country since then.
The Fruit and Vegetable Development Project (2005) was one of the major initiatives in this regard, where the government promoted the installation of tunnel farming systems through subsidies on materials and even drip irrigation systems.
On paper, it all looked great. Higher yields, better water efficiency, off-season supply, better margins, and stronger farmer incomes all pointed to a technology that could move our farming away from low-margin conventional crops, and it worked considerably well.
Between 1998 and 2012, tunnel farming in Pakistan had expanded over more than 200,000 acres, according to data provided by Sajid Iqbal Sandhu. Tunnel farming did not just change how vegetables were grown in Pakistan; it dramatically changed how much could be grown and when.
Based on 2025 estimates shared by Green Circle Pvt Ltd, tunnel farming in Pakistan today broadly operates across three tiers, each defined by how much a farmer can invest upfront and how much of the off-season price premium they can realistically capture.
At the top end are high-efficiency poly-houses, considered the most advanced and capital-intensive model. They are mainly used for high-value crops such as cucumbers, premium-quality tomatoes, peppers, strawberries, and squash. The cost of entry is very high, with a one-acre professional setup falling in the range of roughly Rs. 9-10 million.
The model works not just because of off-season pricing but also because of high-value crops. Produce grown under these systems can sell for about three times the normal market rate. Larger farms with these systems have reported internal rates of return of 60 percent plus, with capital recovery around 1.5-2 years.
The more commonly adopted model is the walk-in or medium tunnel system, which sits in the middle in terms of both cost and complexity. They are widely used for crops like cucumbers, sweet peppers, hot peppers, brinjal, cabbages, and pumpkins. Costs vary depending on the structure.
A bamboo-based setup costs roughly Rs. 0.5-0.6 million per acre, while a galvanized iron structure goes up to around Rs. 1.2-1.3 million. In return, farmers can make about Rs. 0.9 million per acre from cucumbers and roughly Rs. 0.5-0.6 million from sweet peppers, which is why this remains the most widely adopted commercial model.
At the lowest end are low tunnels, simple 3-foot structures made from bamboo or iron rods, mainly used for crops like melons, strawberries, and pumpkins. They cost roughly Rs. 30,000-40,000 per acre, yet can still deliver solid margins, with strawberries generating around Rs. 0.3 million per acre, making them an accessible entry point into tunnel farming.
But despite all these returns, the growth in area under cultivation has plateaued during the last decade, as per industry experts, and the promise of across-the-scale modernization and uplifting remains unfulfilled. So what really happened?
What Killed the Growth?
The promise of exponential profits drove the growth of tunnel farming, and that’s where the first cracks started to appear. Foremost, Pakistan has a peculiar geography, spanning nearly 1800km from the Arabian Sea to the Karakoram range, so it often experiences +25C and -25C at the same time, which enables the growth of most vegetables across the country at all times and ensures their availability. But that wasn’t the biggest killer!
Sajid Iqbal Sandhu from Green Circle told ProPakistani,
The profitability of greenhouses in Pakistan begins with ensuring that your vegetables get sold at $2.5 per kg (can vary based on the structure and vegetable), and unfortunately, no vegetables can be sold at that price in Pakistan. And secondly, even if some market forces determine the prices, the government comes in with non-stop raids and fines on shoppers, even sealing the shops at times.
He also noted that they have repeatedly conveyed to the government that prices of perishable commodities cannot be fixed. He also complained that agriculture input companies, from fertilizers to tractor manufacturers, all change prices on a whim, whenever they want, and however much they deem preferable, and nobody raises a finger.
But the moment vegetable prices go up, we see a media frenzy, followed by police action on shoppers in markets and mandis, leading to fines and even sealing of shops, he added.
Between the 2010s (the peak years of tunnel farming) till 2026, the cost of nearly every major agricultural input in Pakistan has risen multiple times over, significantly increasing the economics of tunnel farming. DAP fertilizer prices have climbed nearly 5x from roughly Rs. 3,000 per bag to nearly Rs. 15,000, while urea has risen from around Rs. 1,000 to over Rs. 4,000 per bag.
Diesel prices have jumped from under Rs. 100 per liter to nearly Rs. 400. The same has happened with agriculture wages and Tunnel Farming infrastructure like plastic sheets, GI pipes, hybrid seeds, pesticides, and drip irrigation equipment, driven largely by inflation, steel prices, imports, and rupee depreciation.
Yet few of these sectors ever faced the kind of aggressive public crackdowns routinely seen in vegetable markets. Fertilizer companies, fuel suppliers, steel manufacturers, and machinery makers continue raising prices with little interference, while farmers and vegetable sellers often found themselves dealing with raids, fines, and sudden price enforcement campaigns.
No cheap, fame-hungry assistant commissioner has stormed warehouses over rising steel prices or sealed offices over expensive diesel. Why? Because most of these increases were justified based on the economic situation of the country and simple business math but that same courtesy of understanding is not extended to farmers and vegetable shoppers.
In what is supposedly a free market economy, different economic players have often been treated very differently, with perishable food markets bearing the brunt of cheap political theatrics because they end up creating news panic.
The government should be focusing its energy on boosting the social security net for people in lower economic rungs instead of punishing the average vegetable shoppers and indirectly the farmers, especially when agriculture credit support for farmers is not what it needs to be.
We cannot possibly squeeze an industry from both ends and expect growth at the same time. Through it’s part of a much broader neglect that the agriculture sector faces at large.
Mindset Issues
But even if government interventions and resulting distortion stop, tunnel farming would still struggle because there is one more issue. Tunnel farming is not conventional wheat or fodder cultivation where crops can largely be left to nature after sowing. It is a high-maintenance and highly sensitive system that demands constant monitoring of humidity, temperature, disease outbreaks, irrigation, pruning, and pollination.
“The managerial cost and headache is actually the bigger hurdle,” said Safeer Abbas Chief Consultant at BinQain Agro Services and PhD Student at Tomsk State University.
“Tunnel farming demands very sensitive and skillful care but our farmers are more relaxed and very few are progressive and careful. Any successful tunnel farmer you meet, they will always feel progressive and modern to you. They know how to manage temperature, humidity and airflow while the majority either get stuck at expenses or fail at management, causing losses,” he added.
He said tunnel systems are highly vulnerable to fungal attacks and diseases, meaning even small mistakes in management can destroy crops.
Safeer argued that many of the operational challenges today can actually be managed through relatively affordable precision tools such as hygrometers, moisture meters, farm management apps, mist systems, and automated irrigation setups, but adoption remains weak because the sector still lacks trained labour, technical awareness, and what he described as the “right mindset”.
He noted that most successful tunnel growers eventually become highly detail-oriented because profitability forces them to adapt, but large parts of the sector still operate with conventional farming attitudes despite dealing with a far more technical system.
Sajid Iqbal Sandhu also echoed similar concerns, describing tunnel farming as “very painstaking and care-demanding”.
He said many farmers avoid learning disease identification, management techniques, and newer technologies altogether, while land fragmentation has made it even harder to adopt modern systems at scale.
According to him, tunnel farming can still be highly profitable under the right management practices, but without technical discipline and coordinated cultivation practices, the economics gradually become unsustainable for average growers.
Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect ProPakistani and its owners.
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