Even being surplus in food grains production, about half of the population of Pakistan is still facing food insecurity in the aftermath of high inflation. International aid agency, Oxfam pointed out on Saturday at a function held at Islamabad Press Club that the soaring food prices and lack of political will to fix the broken food chain is forcing more people to face hunger each day.
The speakers included Neva Khan, Oxfam's Country Director in Pakistan, lftikhar Khalid, Oxfam's country programme manager and Mehnaz, a Oxfam representative. Despite the fact that the global economy is a food surplus economy, 852 million people (17 % of the world population) face hunger every day because they do not have access to food and unavailability of balanced diet kills more people every day than disasters, disease or war.
Khan said that women in rural areas go hungry the most despite doing the bulk of work to grow food and feed their families. Women produce up to 80 percent of the food in developing countries but they own only one percent of the land. The food security means all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food which meets their dietary needs. Food security can be broadly divided into three main components namely; food availability, economic access to food, and equity in food distribution.
Khan said that high food prices have significantly worsened food security in Pakistan. "Depleting land and energy resources, inadequate land distribution especially among women, lack of effective agricultural policies, the climate change and recurrent natural disasters are interconnected and are directly affecting food security. Pakistan urgently needs to tackle with the big issues in the realm of food to ensure everyone always has enough to eat. With each passing day, people go hungry in Pakistan, and with the country predicted to be the fourth most populous nation by 2050, we can't wait for agricultural reforms any longer", Neva revealed.
The overall purchasing power of people has gone down by 50% in Pakistan. Effective land use policy, development of climate resilient socio-economic infrastructure, adoption of good agricultural practices and employment generation are must for a food secure Pakistan.
A baseline study conducted by Oxfam in the six disaster-prone districts of Pakistan shows that the number of undernourished people (as per the acceptable Food Consumption threshold - 42) exceeds 50 percent of the area population. The survey was conducted in June, 2011 in Multan, Muzaffargarh & Rajanpur in Punjab, Barkhan in Balochistan and Thatta and Badin in Sindh.
In Pakistan, the poverty rate has officially jumped from 24 to 38 percent between 2005 and 2009 and according to the latest figures, 72.9 million people in Pakistan are below the poverty line while hundreds of thousands of others barely manage to have their basic needs met. Less than half of all rural households own agricultural land, while the top 2.5 percent of households own 40 percent of all land. "Landless farmers especially women and small farmers particularly in the acute poverty pockets of the country need to be at the centre of all agricultural policies. Timely availability of inputs such as certified seed, quality fertiliser, and legal support as well as the necessary equipment must be made possible to help them grow better that we all consume" Khalid said.
According to Mehnaz, as opposed to other countries Pakistan has enough stocks of staple food but the wavering economy and rising inflation have pushed tens of millions below the poverty line. With increased poverty and hike in the food prices, more and more Pakistanis are eating less and less. She added that in Pakistan, the increased gap between the availability of food and its affordability has increased the incidence of food insecurity.
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