Agri experts call for a comprehensive food policy

Say access to food for the general population must be ensured at all times.

LAHORE: Pakistan has the potential to move forward in solving the food and nutritional security problems of millions of Pakistani households if it formulates and adopts rational policies, Ahmad Bukhsh Lehri, federal secretary of the Ministry of National Food Security and Research (MNFS&R) said here on Friday.

Lehri, who was sharing his views in a workshop on the National Food and Nutrition Security Policy, said that the government gives high priority to achieving food security in the country. “Food security requires addressing key areas of sustainable food availability, sustainable access to food, food utilisation and nutrition, stability in food prices and supplies, food and nutrition information systems, monitoring and evaluation, and food safety,” he observed. “Pakistan needs to focus on all these issues on a sustainable basis in the long run.”

The ministry has already started working on a “Zero Hunger Action Plan” that aims to eradicate hunger from the country. “For enhancing food availability, agricultural research organisations in Pakistan such as the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (Parc), in collaboration with provincial agriculture research institutes and centres, are working hard towards developing new technologies and improving existing ones,” he added.



“Food is the basic right of every citizen, and the government is ensuring necessary steps to fulfil the need of providing nutritious food to every individual,” former finance minister Salman Shah said during the meeting. He further said that public-private partnerships are very important in the development of the agri sector, and said the government is striving to involve the private sector.

MNFS&R Additional Secretary Abdul Basit Khan briefed the workshop participants on its goals and objectives. He said the MNFS&R has initiated a consultative process in all provinces in collaboration with provincial governments and other stakeholders for the formulation of a National Food and Nutrition Security Policy. Recommendations from the workshop will be shared with all stakeholders, and all provinces will be taken on board before a final draft is approved. The federal government is working actively to expedite this process, he added.

Parc Chairman Iftikhar Ahmad said that working groups are determining an evolution process and ascertaining proposals for finalising a draft of the National Food and Security Policy. He hoped that suggestions will help authorities formulate a radical and meaningful policy to cope with the issue of food security in the country.

The specific aims of this policy are to establish institutional structures which will allow the ministry to facilitate a process involving federal and provincial authorities, including different ministries, departments, development partners, the civil society and the private sector through the establishment of a new Food and Nutrition Security Council at the national, provincial and district levels.

Agro-Livestock expert, Dr Hamid Jalil on the occasion said that Asia can lead in providing food resources to the world, and Pakistan is able to lead Asia. The only thing required is to teach poor farmers how to plan how and what to cultivate.

According to the proposed draft of the agriculture policy, physical, social and economic access to adequate food should be ensured at all times. Food utilisation and the nutrition dimension of food security means that food is properly utilised, proper food processing and storage techniques are employed and adequate knowledge of nutrition and childcare techniques exists and is applied.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 30^th, 2013.

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