Pakistan’s existential challenge is helping 85 million people beat hunger
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Over the past few months, the Pakistani prime minister has been doing something his predecessors have traditionally ignored, considering it beneath their rank. In major cities, he has been opening shelters for working migrants from rural and peri-urban regions too poor to rent rooms, inaugurating soup kitchens for those going hungry, stocking up the state-managed chain of food-subsidised utility stores, and beefing up funds and increasing quarterly subsistence cash allowances for recipients (who constitute the poorest of Pakistan’s poor) of the award-wining Rs.180 billion social security scheme, the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) which serves 1.7 million poverty stricken families across the country.
For a change, it is good to see a Prime Minister mixing openly with the poor – the first time at this scale after the Benazir Bhutto and Yousaf Gilani governments – and addressing a key problem haunting Pakistan: hunger. Pakistan is an agrarian state and was, up till the 1970’s a food basket for the region. Now it is a net importer of food.
Pakistan has made significant progress in food production over the decades, but food security is still a key challenge due to high population growth, rapid urbanization, low purchasing power, high price fluctuations, erratic food production and inefficient food distribution systems. According to a 2016 report by the United Nations which still holds true, these factors have pushed nearly 40 percent of Pakistan’s estimated 210 million people below the poverty line.
With the poorest families spending a substantial part of their income on food, soaring prices under the incumbent government have exacerbated under-nutrition and vulnerability.
Adnan Rehmat
Preventing 85 million people from going hungry every day and building adequate reserves to feed them surely qualifies as Pakistan’s number one problem. According to the government’s Food Security Assessment Survey, 18 percent of the population is undernourished while the National Institute of Population Studies reports high levels of severe stunting, wasting and underweight. Malnourishment is high in rural areas while around half of the population is consuming less than the dietary requirements of Vitamin A and Iron.
Food insecurity in Pakistan is primarily attributable to the limited economic access of the poorest and most vulnerable to food. A key factor limiting access to food is the increase in the prices of essential food items. With the poorest families spending a substantial part of their income on food, soaring prices under the incumbent government have exacerbated under-nutrition and vulnerability.
So, what can Pakistan do to combat hunger? For starters it can come together against a common foe and continue on the path that otherwise bitter political foes – the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), the Pakistan Muslim League-N (PMLN) and Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI), the country’s three largest parties – have demonstrated, by acknowledging the stakes and continuing to pitch in to combat this crisis.
After food and agriculture subjects were devolved to the provinces under the landmark 18th Amendment in 2010, the Yousaf Raza Gilani government of the PPP in 2011 established the Federal Ministry of National Food Security, the Nawaz Sharif government of PML-N in 2017 drafted the country’s first ever National Food Security Policy and the Imran Khan government of PTI is accelerating implementation of the policy.
What does the policy say? It professedly intends to achieve food security through stable and adequate nourishment and nutrition for a healthy life through indigenous food availability, accessibility, (physical and political), utilization and stability. This is easier said than done as it would require a modern, efficient and diversified agriculture sector to ensure adequate food supplies to people, quality agriculture products to industries, efficient and sustainable use of natural resources, a decent income and employment opportunities for rural residents, systems to deliver food and nutrition to vulnerable groups and climate resilience, among others.
The human security situation in the country is so dire that the Minister for Food Security, Khusro Bakhtiar, conceded earlier this month that Pakistan needs to ramp up its policy actions to hedge against a looming human catastrophe. His solution was to combat the climate crisis by arresting the degradation and depletion of natural resources, better manage resource conflicts among provinces, halt rapid urbanisation, and improve social safety nets.
He is right. Hunger, malnutrition and poverty go together. Over 85 million in Pakistan are hungry not merely because there is not enough food overall, but because they can no longer afford food or do not have the means to produce enough food. Pakistan needs to finally declare its long gestating ‘Zero Hunger Emergency’ plan by pursuing its commitment to the UN Sustainable Development Goal of “ending hunger, achieving food security and improved nutrition and promoting sustainable agriculture”.
For Pakistan the inevitable stares it in the face – hungry people are angry people. National security, as a retired senior military official was reported as conceding earlier this month, needs to be redefined by Pakistan as human security and not just in military security terms as has been the case so far. It’s a long road ahead to end hunger – Pakistan should get started yesterday.
- Adnan Rehmat is a Pakistan-based journalist, researcher and analyst with interests in politics, media, development and science.
Twitter: @adnanrehmat1