Food safety day is observe the world over particularly in developing country including Pakistan to reaffirm the goal to reduce day by day increasing number of food insecure people.
Speaking at the world food day function held here on Thursday the Research and Agriculture Extension Director General Akram Malik said the world population was around 6 billion; 2 billion people would add during next 30 years and another one billion over the following 20 years, and surprisingly all that increase would occur in developing countries, he said.
He stated the present population of Pakistan was around 146.48 million which might doubled in next 30 years.
That mean Pakistan had to double its cereal production particularly wheat to meet food demand and simultaneously other crops to stimulate economic growth, the director general said.
According to 2003 agriculture statistics total wheat production of Pakistan was 19.255 million tones and after deducting 1.925 million tones for seed and feed, the total availability comes to 17.330 or 116.32 Kg per capita.
He said Sindh produced 15 percent on 1.2 million hectares and it had potential to produce 30 percent if seed, timely water and fair price was ensured. He said government had already launched several projects for resource conservation to reduce food insecurity.
He said presently, 2.8 billion people in developing countries facing insecurity of food and most of them were undernourished.
According to FAO assessment total incidence of under-nourishment in developing countries was estimated at 776 million persons.
Pakistan committed to achieve the goal of food security with the advent of recent poverty reduction strategy; there had been efforts of poverty reduction.
However, the evidence was the poverty level remained stagnant. The current official estimate places 32 percent of the population undernourished or below the poverty line. The majority of the undernourished people live in rural areas.
Referring to nexus between land, population, degradation and poverty, Akram Malik said direct and indirect causes of land degradation were linked with population growth and poverty.
The limited land resources and increase in rural population results in small farms, low production and increased landlessness.
Landlessness and poverty taken together lead to non-sustainable management practices, directly causing land degradation. There was different estimation related to economic cost of degradation by FAO, UNDP, and UNEP.
In short Pakistan was suffering roughly from loss of Rs 150 to 180 billion annually in agriculture GDP because of degradation process having deep negative impact on poverty.
He said to check those huge losses a massive campaign was must for sustainable development of agriculture sector; campaign for population control was also imperative not only for improving the food security but also for economic prosperity of the country.
The other speakers emphasised on new agriculture research initiative in Sindh and revision of curricula at agriculture universities involving experts and industrial sector.
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