'Pakistan improves two percent malnutrition in 20 years'

Pakistan has improved by two percent malnutrition during the past 20 years, but made encouraging progress in per capita availability of food over the last decade, says a report. The report on Human Development in South Asia was issued by Mahboob-ul-Haq Human Development Centre the other day.
According to it, the malnourished population in Pakistan decreased from 26 percent to 24 percent in the past 20 years whereas infant pre-school children, pregnant and lactating mothers remain particularly vulnerable.
During 1999-2000, there were eight million malnourished children in Pakistan with iron deficiency being quite common, the report reveals.
According to the report, there are three key elements to assure food security in South Asia, which includes: availability, accessibility and distribution of food and as it explains, that the availability of food does not guarantee everyone access to the same.
During the 1970s and 1980s, most of the countries in South Asia were self-sufficient in food, but the growing population put pressure on the domestic food supplies rendering a number of countries as the net importers of food.
About Pakistan, the report says that it had achieved near self-sufficiency in wheat and was considered a leading rice exporter during early 1980s. However, by the later half of the 1990s, Pakistan was annually importing 2.5 million tonnes of wheat.
The crisis of food insecurity in the region is mostly related to low access rather than the low availability of food, the report added.
According to the report, despite increase in food availability, sever inequality in land and income distribution prevents the poor from meeting their minimum daily nutritional requirements.
Of the total farm area in Pakistan, 40 percent is owned by 7 percent large farmers with an average land holding of 10 hectares or more. In fact, four out of five farmers have small landholdings of 5 hectares or less.
The report says that public food distribution system in South Asia is believed to be highly inefficient and corrupt. Pakistan has tried to experiment with a new system of food marketing since 1987. Under the system, the government annually issues wheat in bulk to the authorised flour mills in the country at a fixed price.
Various food distribution scheme introduced for the purpose have not been very successful.