With less than a thousand daily COVID cases, Pakistan may finally be done with the worst of a pandemic. But now may not be the time to toss our caps in the air and make merry. For the pandemic was never just a medical emergency. Exposing weaknesses in the food systems worldwide, the toxic combination of the virus-induced job losses amid burgeoning household expenses (thankyou, skyrocketing inflation) continues to spell disaster after disaster. Warning hunger was on the rise far and wide, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres raised the plight of over three billion struggling from undernourishment to mark World Food Day. His message should have struck the loudest chord in Islamabad where the emphasis is perpetually fixated on the economic outlook. Meanwhile, food insecurity is allowed to roar however menacingly and make its way into homes everywhere. A report published by Pakistan Social and Living Standards had put us at a crass 16.4 per cent earlier this year. Just as worrying was our 80th slot out of 113 countries on the Global Food Security index. Mind you, these poor rankings had set in before the much-lamented “tsunami of inflation.” No matter how passionately the kaptaan’s machinery may jump to defend the historic high petroleum prices, their spillover effect on perishable items cannot be made light of. Food scarcity may well make an appearance soon as the agricultural sector locks horns with the government over price ceilings. Even if artificial shortages don’t make the cut, how would an average family afford to bring home the (bread)? Food inflation is in double digits. Though millers and the government are seated on the deliberation table, flour shortage reigns in all its glory. LPG cylinders have gone through the roof, making the oncoming winters several degrees drearier. If tomatoes are up by 11 rupees, cooking oil has soared to Rs 110. Living through such expensive times on a shoestring budget is a remarkable feat on its own. And desperate attempts to maintain the caloric levels through whatever means available is closely associated with what the UN has been warning as an onslaught of obesity. Raising the clarion call of a sustainable, healthy lifestyle is a futile exercise. For, how can someone be reprimanded for not making the healthier choice or not caring for the environment if he is always living on the edge. That world hunger should make us made like hell is an old mantra. People around us have been starving for years but the rich and the mighty are busy enjoying the view from their bejeweled thrones. Whether to work at developing agricultural productivity, cutting the middlemen to ensure price uniformity or strive for economic measures that actually help strengthen the buying power of the masses; there is no shortage of solutions. But the political will to swish and flick? Not so much! *