Planning for national food security
By Shahid Javed Burki
Monday, 26 Oct, 2009
PAKISTAN’s yo-yo food security situation – years of plenty followed by years of extreme shortages – is the consequence of a combination of several factors. Some of these originate inside the country; some are from the outside. Over some, policy makers have some control; over several others they have to react to external developments.
Over the short term, the availability of food supply within the country is affected by weather, by decisions made by farmers in response to prices they anticipate for their produce, and by price changes in the external markets. Over the long-run, however, food security will be influenced by some of the trends over which policy makers don’t have much control.
I will begin with demography. After having become sanguine about anticipated increase in population, experts have once again begun to focus on the problems created by the unrelenting increase in global population. Several decades ago when population increase was a concern, it was based on the prospect of fairly significant increase in world’s population. This was projected to reach about 12 billion in 2050.
However, unexpectedly the rate of fertility began to decline in most populous countries and the worry ceased about globe’s capacity to feed the population of that size. In 1972 when food and agricultural experts were planning the international food summit, populous countries such as Bangladesh were a serious problem. Now almost four decades later population growth is no longer a concern for Bangladesh.
The country has experienced one of the more profound changes in its demographic situation, with the population’s median age increasing by four years within a couple of decades. Now, concerns have risen more for environmental reasons than for the capacity of the agricultural system to produce the required amount of food.
Once again if Bangladesh were to be used as an example, if global atmosphere continues to increase and ice in the polar regions continues to melt, the rise in the level of sea will have serious consequences for low lying countries. According to one estimate, some 300 million Bangladeshis, or one fifth of the total population, could be displaced.
Returning to the issue of population increase let me provide some numbers. The world’s current population is estimated to be 6.7 billion; by 2050, it is expected to grow by 2.5 billion, increasing to 9.2 billion. Practically all of this increase will be in the developing world. If Pakistan’s population growth averages at 1.6 per cent a year in this period, its population will increase from 175 million in 2010 to 275 million in 2050. At this rate, its share in world population will increase from 2.6 to three per cent. Will the domestic output of food keep in pace with the anticipated increase in population? Unless a significant change occurs in the structure of agriculture and in the way farmers use land, water and chemicals, the answer to this question has to be no. The country has very little virgin land left to be exploited – a situation it shares with most of the developing world For the most of human history, the main way to boost food supplies was to increase the amount of land under cultivation. From 1700 to 1961, global population increased five times. Global cropland also increased by the same magnitude – five times. Largely because of the industrial production of nitrogen and the development of high yield hybrid crops while population increased by 80 per cent from 1961 to 2001, crop land increased by only eight per cent Pakistan is among the several large agricultural systems in the developing world that don’t have much new land to bring under cultivation. Several countries – in particular those in some parts of Africa and Latin America – agricultural production is being boosted by clearing millions of acres of rain forest. This is unfortunate since it has an enormous impact on global warming. That said, even this option is not available to Pakistan. It has already used much of its forests.
Land constraint and damage to land productivity by the excessive use of chemicals are not the only constraints faced by the sector of agriculture. Pakistan has also to face the coming water shortages. These will be caused by the increase in the non-agricultural use of water when the number of people living in the urban areas increase, industry’s demand for water grows, and global warming, by melting glaciers, will first produce floods and then reduce the flow of water in the rivers. These are some of the reasons why experts have called Pakistan as a water stressed country.
Restraining population growth is one way of dealing with the problem of food security. If the rate of fertility was to decline further, quickening the trend that has been established, a significant improvement will occur in the food security situation. Pakistan will have 25 million fewer mouths to feed if the rate of population increase was to drop to 1.2 per cent a year between now and 2050.
That this can happen in a Muslim country has been demonstrated, as already indicated, by Bangladesh. What made it possible was a combination of factors. The country has one of the most impressive NGO activities anywhere in the developing world and a number of these have fixed their sights on family planning. The spectacular growth of the ready-made garment industry has increased female employment. A large number of women have left their homes to work in the garment factories. By working, they have also a source of income that frees them from the control of their husbands and families. This has changed the reproductive behavior of millions of women. This option will become available to Pakistan only if the grip of Islamic extremists can be loosened.
Consumption patterns are changing which will impact the global food economy. As China grows and its people become richer, desire for more dairy and food products will divert cereals to feed animals. With oil prices expected to rise, the use of food crops to produce bio-fuels will increase. These developments have already affected food supplies. In 2007, squeeze on global supplies resulted in an average food price increase of 23 per cent. This trend continued in 2008 with another increase of 54 per cent. These prices rises were felt in Pakistan when food inflation soared.
In view of all these reasons, the challenge before the policy makers is a complex one. In planning for food security, they will need to deal simultaneously with a number of factors: increase in population of between 75--100 million by 2025, not much scope for increasing the amount of land put under crop cover, pressure on the environment, reduced supply of water and highly volatile domestic and foreign prices. The government may wish to appoint an agriculture and food security commission to come up with a set of policy initiatives to deal with a problem that may become difficult with every passing year.