EDITORIAL: Not that anybody needed to be reminded about the sorry state of the agriculture sector, considering the circumstances, but it’s now pretty clear that the government’s target of “zero-hunger by 2030” set out in the Agenda for Sustainable Development is not going to be met. The 2021 Global Hunger Index, compiled by leading international aid agencies, put Pakistan at 92 among 116 countries, declaring its hunger level “serious” as 60 percent of its population is food-insecure and 44pc of children under five years of age are chronically malnourished. These were last year’s figures so it’s not very difficult to understand how this year’s record floods and subsequent devastation, which farmers say put them back by about 50 years, must have further wrecked the entire sector.
There are a number of reasons for this; from the paralysis caused by Covid that pushed millions of people all across the world back below the poverty line to reduced crop yields because of climate change to the fact that the country is fast becoming one of the most water-scarce in the world. But the biggest problem has been lack of proper attention from the government, regardless of the party in power, over the last few decades, which led to short-term fixes to a deep structural problem in order to preserve political capital as the number one item on the agenda of government as well as opposition has been protecting their own interests instead of the welfare of the state and the people. And now we’re at the point where Pakistan is all but an agri-economy in name only; because it has the largest number of families associated with it rather than the contribution it makes to the economy.
This is very bad news, since the country’s small export industry, which has always struggled to contribute enough to the current account, is also almost entirely agri-dependent. Right now everybody is consumed with preserving the just-revived IMF bailout programme as well as emergency measures to mitigate the fallout of the floods, which has destroyed lives and livelihoods like never before, so it will be quite a while before the long-term implications of food-scarcity are properly quantified.
The immediate paralysis is understandable, given the enormity of the relief effort, but that does not mean that the government can’t start collecting crucial stakeholders around a table to hammer out possible solutions. This year’s floods alone have affected more than 33 million people, which, from the government’s point of view, means a very large army of people, suddenly dispossessed of their lands, livestock and life-savings, need urgent sustenance, relocation and re-building. And it’s a very cruel irony that once the floods are behind them they must tackle water scarcity for the crops they may or may not get to grow again.
It’s also a crying shame that this is just the moment when the country’s politics is the most bitter, toxic and divided perhaps in its entire history; further proof, if any were still needed, that the people are not too high on any political party’s priority list. It’s also very sad that Pakistanis are having to brace these calamities on top of inflation figures not seen in many decades.
It is abundantly clear, especially now, that a lot of Pakistanis will not be able to make it through these challenges. It’s now got to the point that the prospect of widespread starvation looms large as the political elite is busy snatching, or remaining in, power even if it means destroying crucial institutions – including the ones leading all the relief efforts – and the future of the people.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022