Daily Times

“Hunger is actually the worst weapon of mass destruction. It claims millions of victims each year” — Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, President of Brazil.

In the contemporary era the non-traditional elements of security pose greater threat to the state than the traditional ones, and alarmingly, for some states they are becoming an existential threat. Food insecurity is one of those elements that have the probability of troubling peace situation, as it is often said, “Food insecurity anywhere threatens peace everywhere.” Several projects around the world have been undertaken and are in progress to reduce food insecurity. The first Millennium Development Goal on hunger requires that the proportion of people suffering from hunger be halved between 1990 and 2015. According to UN World food programme, hunger is the major health risk that kills more people every year then malaria, AIDS, and tuberculosis combined. It is always a painful sight to watch children searching for food in the garbage. Despite the great economic and technological advances, many people around the world are dying of hunger. Food insecurity is a very serious situation with considerable deplorable outcomes.

Pakistan, besides facing many traditional security threats, is also in the reach of non-traditional security threats like economy, mass migration, climate change, food insecurity and many others. According to the 1996 World Food Summit, “Food security, at the individual, household, national, regional and global levels [is achieved] when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.” According to this definition Pakistan is far behind achieving this status. The constitution of Pakistan provides for state the responsibility to guarantee the provision of basic necessities of life including the right to food for all citizens of Pakistan. Food security condition in Pakistan is deteriorating with the passage of time with the number of food-insecure people increasing day by day. This number rose after the devastating floods of 2010. According to several reports, at present, the food-insecure people comprise 51 percent of the total population in Pakistan as compared to 22 percent in 2007. Some of the major findings of the 2011 National Nutrition Survey, which was conducted after 10 years, revealed that the food-insecure people in Punjab comprise 59.5 percent, in Sindh 72 percent, in KP 31.5 percent, in Balochistan 63.5 percent, in FATA 58.4 percent, in AJK 57.1 percent and in Gilgit-Baltistan 39.8 percent. There were more food insecure households in rural areas then urban areas.

The major problem in Pakistan, despite the satisfactory availability of food, is that the people do not have access to food because of constraints to their purchasing power. For instance, a large family in Pakistan is forced to spend 46 percent of the family income on food. Apart from agricultural growth, which is considered to be the main factor of food security in Pakistan, there are certain other factors that directly or indirectly have an effect on the agricultural productivity and food security situation in the country. The main causes of food insecurity in Pakistan is rising population, rising food prices and poverty, urbanisation, bad governance, low agricultural productivity, climate change (droughts and floods), and inequity in income distribution. According to the UN World food programme, in Pakistan the rate of the number of children with low weight for their height is 15.1% (for children under five), whereas any value above 15 is considered an emergency level by the WHO. The nutrition level of food is definitely a point of concern.

To save Pakistan from the reach of food insecurity zone, top priority should be given to the role of government. These problems should be dealt on an emergency basis. More cheap food schemes and welfare schemes should be introduced by the government to assure the availability of food for the poor people. A grand strategy should be formulated to address such issues. Proper utilisation of cultivable land, fertilisers and seeds is necessary to maximise the agricultural productivity. The loss could also be minimised by proper implementation of climate change policy impacting food security condition. Wide spread inequity in income distribution and land holdings, rising food prices needs to be solved on urgent basis to make food accessible not beyond the purchasing power of common man/poor. According to the UN Food and Agriculture organization, every year 1.3 billion tons of food is wasted, equivalent to the same amount produced in the whole sub-Saharan Africa.

In Pakistan, every day due to different human practices and on wedding occasions a huge amount of food gets wasted. Awareness campaigns should be run by the media and NGOs with the theme of saving food for the unfortunate ones. Despite several on-going projects by the UN, WHO, FAO etc, ‘dealing with food crisis cells’ could be formed in NGOs and collaborations could be made for reducing hunger from the country. The present government in its budget plan for the year 2013-14 has allocated Rs 750 million for the uplift of agriculture sector and the ongoing schemes of National Food Security and Research Division. The on-going schemes and plans to reduce hunger should be implemented in good faith and they should not merely remain on paper. With good mechanisms and proper implementation of strategies Pakistan is in a position to ensure food security as well as nutritional security in the years to come.

The writer has a Masters in International Relations from Quaid-e-Azam University and is currently teaching at Capital Education System School, Islamabad. She can be reached at faiza.r.lone@gmail.com