Food insecurity in Pakistan today poses the biggest challenge for the government, particularly in the wake of devastating flash floods that have wiped out assets, particularly of small farmers.
There are basically three prerequisites to ensuring food security in a country: these include availability, access and equitable distribution of food, in this order. But physical availability of food is no guarantee that everybody will have access to it, which in turn depends largely on an equitable distribution mechanism, which unfortunately is missing in most Third World countries, including Pakistan.
It will be recalled that Pakistan had almost attained self-sufficiency in wheat production in the 1970s and 1980s, though by the latter half of 1990s it was importing 2.5 million tons of wheat. It is often argued that the problem is mostly related to low access rather than to low availability of food, which is a significant distinction, given the frequent commodity exports governments in Pakistan have routinely resorted to. Secondly, despite increased food availability, inequality in land and income distribution has often prevented low-income segments to meet their minimum daily nutritional requirements.
One of the major bars responsible for preventing modernisation of our agriculture sector is that smaller farmers are given restricted access to water, credit, fertiliser and other resources, as compared to big landlords. Restricted access of credit to small farmers has proved counter-productive, because they dutifully return the loans along with interest, and do not seek loan write-offs, and two, if smaller farmers are given more credit, this can gradually help modernise our agriculture sector, which is the main support base of Pakistan's economy. Securing a higher crop yield through mechanised farming can help the government tackle the problem of food insecurity as well.
There is an urgent need to improve functioning of agricultural markets, maintain reserve stocks, promote agricultural research and make substantial investment in water sector, none of which has been adequately done. Secondly, a major policy flaw has been that construction of storage space has never made a part of agriculture policy, which has generated a host of problems.
Thirdly, a shifting policy focus, apparently at the behest of donors seems to have been responsible for what has been claimed as "food insecurity." Market manipulation and profiteering through different means, seemingly in collusion with the stakeholders, has been responsible for raging food inflation in the country, which the government must contain. This will help it address the problem of food insecurity as well.