Is Pakistan Food Secure?

Having the ability to access enough food to sustain yourself freely and easily generally classifies you as ‘Food Secure.’ An overwhelming majority of the Pakistani population resides in the rural areas and work in the agricultural sector. With the progression of time, agricultural output has risen over time leading to Pakistan being classified as a ‘food surplus’ country – which means that every year there is a national excess of food which exists in the market and is exported internationally, is even contributed to the United Nation’s World Food Programme.

The existence of this reality should generally lead one to a conclusion that Pakistan as a nation is ‘Food Secure.’ However, the presence of excess food does not really mean that the populace is able to successfully access this food. Poverty, poor management of resources and not enough modernization has left millions malnourished and under the constant risk of starvation.

With rising prices of food and stuck in the depths of poverty, millions find themselves unable to access food to adequately sustain themselves. Most of the excess food is exported abroad, the fact that there is excess food usually means that there aren’t anymore buyers in the domestic market. This is technically correct however; this is true because many people find themselves ‘priced out’ of buying enough food. Being a farmer is an extremely labour intensive job which burns a lot of calories, such a reality means that you require a great deal of nutrients to live a healthy sustainable life. Most poor farmers with large families often just keep with themselves or buy from the market food which barely sustains themselves because that is all that they can afford.

Women in particular get an even smaller share of the household food due to existing problematic traditions but also simply because most of the men work in the fields and require more food. Women often go through multiple miscarriages before successful birth in the rural areas as they are not consuming enough nutrients, the children born are also often very weak and face the risk of not surviving beyond the age of five. Additionally, most of the population sustains itself on crops such as wheat and maize whereas, for a healthy nutrition-rich diet, an adequate source of protein is also needed which many of the masses often cannot access. A national nutrition survey in 2018 found that 60 percent of the population in the country was in-fact ‘food insecure’ and 15 percent of children under the age of five suffer from malnutrition. With rising inflation, more and more people find themselves to be ‘food insecure.’ Adequate government support to drive down the prices of food and to protect vulnerable farmers does not exist in the status quo. Much more needs to be done in this particular sector.

A factor that contributes to this food insecurity is poor management of resources. The two main resources that need to be managed is the crop itself and the main raw material i.e. water. Annually, the government purchases wheat from farmers and then redistributes to the market to sell; this is done so that the price is kept in check and does not skyrocket. However, the price at which the government buys the crop has over the years grown to be not competitive leading the farmers to sell their harvest to the black market, which leads to the general price level rising. A greater support price for wheat and subsidies to reduce the cost of production by the state may help in easing the problem. Furthermore, every year the state also stores some chunk of the harvest to use next years to protect the population against a potential ‘bad harvest’. The problem here is the usage of substandard storage techniques which means that not enough grain can be stored in case a natural calamity comes. A lot of the grain also spoils due to the old storage techniques. Because of this, a considerable quantity of food grain is lost between harvest and consumption. If safety measures are adopted, both quantitative and qualitative losses can be avoided at all levels.

Poor management of water resources also contributes to inadequate food output. According to a World Bank (WB) report, irrigation dominates water use in the country, the four major crops (rice, wheat, sugar cane, and cotton) use 80pc of the water while contributing only 5pc to GDP. Poor water management, conservatively estimated, costs the country 4pc of GDP or around $12 billion per year, the WB noted. Modern agricultural societies often use water sprinklers in the fields to water the crops, this spreads water more quickly over a large radius but also uses less water to do so. The kind of seeds that are used to grow the harvest are also often not of the variety that allows for the use of less water. Modern technology has allowed for the creation of high yield providing seeds for many crops to allow for the most efficient usage of land.

A great deal of water is also lost due to the unlined canal system that exists across the plains of the provinces of Punjab and Sindh; a simple lining of canals would greatly reduce water loss. Many small farmers use groundwater through tube-wells to water their fields, this depletes the groundwater table and makes the land drier. A depleted groundwater table could lead to farmers becoming dependent on rainfall to water their fields, which has grown very irregular over the past decade. If less water is used for agriculture, more water would be available for the general consumer -especially in dry areas where hundreds of people also find themselves without access to water e.g. the Thar desert in Sindh.

But is there really a risk of famine or drought in Pakistan? In the modern world with efficient communication and free-trade, the likelihood of a long-stretched famine is quite low. Such an emergency can be brought to attention very quickly and grain can move across borders quite fast if it is absent can even be imported. Amartya Sen, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, is of the opinion that the existence of democracy also reduces the possibility of a famine. He is of the opinion that democratic governments draw their mandate from the people and have an on-going incentive not to let people face a protracted famine – as they might not get voted in again. No great famine has occurred in modern times at the level of those that happened in the old imperial states. In Pakistan, the passage of the 18th Amendment to the constitution, a great deal of power has been delegated to the provinces. It allows the provinces to devise policies that are necessary for dealing with their unique circumstances.

Even with the risk of drought or famine not being a real one, the reality of the millions of people living lives with inadequate food resources is a dark one. A reality which needs to be actively engaged with in order to change. Better management of land and water resources, greater mechanization and timely governmental intervention would go a long way in easing the insecurity of the population. The answer that there is rising agricultural output and that Pakistan is a net food-surplus country is an inadequate one to the question of food security. The prices of food, the ability to access food in cases of a bad harvest or simply being at the risk of losing access to food and consuming enough nutrients are important factors in assessing food security.