Food output must rise

Pakistan must increase its food output by 40 to 50 percent if it is to be able to feed the projected population of 221 million by 2025. This disturbing data was revealed in a day-long workshop titled "Technical Assistance: Balochistan Water Resources Development Project" organised by the Asian Development Bank, the federal and Balochistan governments and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. One would earnestly demand the government take due note of this and begin to take mitigating measures now instead of ignoring this dire warning by local and international experts.
It is relevant to note that successive Pakistani governments ignored warnings by local and international experts decades ago that unless timely appropriate measures are taken Pakistan would move from a water-stressed country to a water-deficient country - a state that unfortunately the country is moving inexorably towards even today. In 2010 the then Minister for Food and Agriculture, Nazar Mohammad Gondal, revealed that Pakistan's water availability declined from 5,650 cubic metres in 1960 to 1,200 cubic metres and added that "in 2025, not more than 1,000 cubic metres will be available per person, making the country a water-scarce area". This was not accompanied by any strategy followed by disbursements to deal with the water crisis and sadly the PML-N government appears to be focused on energy projects and road building but not on reversing this alarming trend.
A World Bank report maintains that the major factor accounting for Pakistan's water scarcity is high population growth with additional sector-specific issues, including over-exploited and polluted groundwater, poor repair of water infrastructure and financially unsustainable water management system. The population growth rate for this report and for the recent workshop was premised on the growth rate applicable during a census held 18 years ago in 1998; since then successive Pakistani governments have made undertaking the census exercise hostage to either political considerations and/or post-9/11 security concerns. Be that as it may, data suggests that country's population increased by 46.9 percent between 2001 and 2011 which gave the country the dubious title of being the fifth most populous nation - after China, India, the United States and Indonesia. There appears to be no focus of the Sharif administration, like its predecessors, on checking the population growth rate which accounts for the country's poor per capita infrastructure and social sector availability in spite of large federal and provincial public sector development programmes.
Additionally of concern is the low importance given by the Sharif administration to agriculture. The Prime Minister's farm package announced before the local bodies elections in Sindh and Punjab envisaging a 20 billion rupee subsidy and bank loans remains unimplemented. And officials on condition of anonymity have revealed to Business Recorder that Pakistani yield per hectare (around 35 maunds per acre) is less than half that of Indian Punjab's (78 maunds per acre) and the reason is near zero subsidies (in marked contrast to India and other countries) which is the direct outcome of our heavy reliance on external borrowing and the accompanying loan conditions. The poor seed quality is clearly not a concern of the government and neither is spreading awareness amongst farmers of new farming techniques.
Pakistan price commission was made subordinate to Ministry of Food, as a donor condition, which accounts for the government's failure to intervene in the case of pricing issues. Pakistani governments have focused on sugar and wheat subsidy only and while wheat is certainly a staple in this country heavy subsidisation of sugar does periodically make the government of the day susceptible to allegations of nepotism given that sugar mill owners constitute a 'who's who' of our political elite. In addition, food subsidy is now limited to Ramazan packages and typically is around 2 to 3 billion rupees maximum while sugar subsidy alone is around 4 billion rupees since 2013-14 during the tenure of the PML-N government.
To conclude, the Sharif administration needs to focus attention on controlling the population growth rate, improving water availability and last but not least on increasing farm output.