Food inflation during the past two years was purely a governance issue. Pakistan was the 6th largest producer of wheat during 2006-07 and it was 9th largest exporter of wheat and one found prices of wheat flour soaring in domestic market, said Dr Abid Suleri, Executive Director of Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI).
While addressing the participants of a seminar on "Future Challenges: Food and Development" jointly organised by Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) and Frederick Pardee Centre, Boston University USA here on Monday.
Dr Adil Najam, Director Pardee Centre US, Sahib-e-Haq, Head of Vulnerability Analysis and Mapping Unit, World Food Programme (WFP), analysed the issue of food security at global, national and local level, respectively.
Dr Abid Suleri emphasised that food insecurity in a country that is largely self sufficient in production is an indicator of skewed socio-economic access to food. Majority of the population gets deprived of their socio-economic access to food and this leads to a societal conflict that leads to militancy and violence.
"Government of Pakistan should improve its food governance if it wants to improve the law and order situation in the country", suggested Dr Suleri. He also mentioned the food security analysis study that SDPI has undertaken in collaboration with Swiss Development Agency, and World Food Programme. Once completed, this study would guide government and donor agencies in carrying out well-informed interventions.
He was of the opinion that none of those factors contributed to food price hike in Pakistan during 2007. Food security is not merely a production issue but it is a political problem that can only be resolved by improving the governance at local level.
The speakers were of the opinion that food security has to be dealt not just as food issue but also as a development issue.
While deliberating upon major reasons of food price hike at global level such as production factor, bio fuels, energy crisis and climate change, Dr Adil Najam while discussing the findings of the latest study conducted by the Pardee Centre, endorsed the ideas presented by Dr Suleri and informed that global trends reveal that the food insecurity is triggered not just by lack of food but also by bad governance and low human development. "The countries with high food insecurity are also the victims of bad governance, with low human development index and are often hit by riots due to food scarcity", maintained Dr Najam.
We need to improve the governance at local level taking queues from global level, said Dr Najam. He also warned about the possible negative consequences of climate change on food systems and emphasised that climate change would increase the uncertainty and vulnerability for farming community world over.
Sahib-e-Haq of WFP gave an overview of Pakistan's food crisis in last year and highlighted interventions of World Food Programme to provide relief to the food insecure population. It was agreed in the seminar that a sectoral approach to resolve the issue of food security would not work and all stakeholders must adapt a "Global" approach ie, learning from global level and implementing at national level.