Towards greater food security
By
Syed Mohammad Ali
The Mahbub-ul-Haq Centre has launched its latest annual report on the state of human development in South Asia. This year’s report takes a closer look at how the problem of food security, impacts broader human development concerns. At a conference organised this past weekend at the Lahore University of Management Sciences, a panel of experts discussed the various contours of this problem from the human security, climate change, economic and governance angles.
Although the report itself draws attention to a broader South Asian context, let us focus here on the case of Pakistan.
The present food security situation in our country is increasingly serious. Hunger is now a major problem for nearly half our population. Drawing upon findings of recent surveys, it was illustrated how food insecurity hits poor households the hardest, causing them to sacrifice basic needs such as health and education.
Despite this serious situation, it is surprising that Pakistan has no food security policy. It was thus rightly suggested that food security should be accepted as a fundamental right in the constitution, as education was accepted as a basic right of every citizen under the 18th Amendment.
India has been deliberating legislation for food security to be implemented using its extensive rationing system. Pakistan, however, began favouring cash grants during the 1980s, at the behest of World Bank advice. Unfortunately, current cash grants schemes such as the current Benazir Income Support Programme are too bogged down with beneficiary selection criteria problems and accompanying political nepotism, to effectively provide adequate food security to all those threatened by malnutrition.
While our leaders like to boast about the prominence of our agrarian sector, the fact remains that agricultural growth remains lackluster since many years. Due to lack of adequate investment in irrigational infrastructure, a significant proportion of our freshwater is being wasted before it can reach fields.
The continuing mismanagement of our available food stocks, and the inability of the government to curb rising food prices, is further making the fundamental need of obtaining food an increasingly difficult proposition for the poor.
Conversely, climate changes are also impinging on the food security situation in our country. Pakistan was described as being the most drought and flood prone area in South Asia, according to one food security expert. The extent of damage to crops, cultivable land and livestock which has been wreaked by consecutive flooding over the past two years provides ample illustration concerning the reality of this threat.
Food security can’t be secured without adopting a multi-pronged approach. Band-aid solutions of providing free meals for a limited duration, to calamity hit displaced people, or inefficient subsidy schemes such as ‘sasti roti,’ will not do much to address the hunger problem in the longer term. Doing so requires squarely dealing with structural reasons for prevailing inequality, and correcting institutional biases preventing the poor from access to resources needed to boost food productivity. There is also need for rethinking myopic policies which place undue emphasis on maximising cash cropping and agricultural exports, which may serve the limited interests of large landowners, traders, industrialists, and bureaucrats; but they seem to be diminishing the food security of many poor, urban and rural households.
Source ---The Express Tribune