For a bag of flour

Food insecurity is creating desperation as a man was killed at a distribution point for subsidised wheat flour

Food insecurity is creating desperate scenes across the country, most recently as a man was killed and several other people injured in a stampede at a distribution point for subsidised wheat flour. Amid crippling inflation and supply concerns, people are having to wait for several hours to access affordable staple food items — waits that are reportedly being aggravated by mismanagement on the part of local authorities and political leaders who are more concerned with photo ops rather than feeding starving children. The fact that people are willing to risk life and limb for half-price flour should be a wakeup call for policymakers, but instead, it’s just another day for the ruling class, which has allowed these artificial shortages — as they claim — to spread from hard to reach areas to major cities and even the actual crop-growing districts.

Government officials, mill owners and wholesalers and grocery store operators are all blaming each other for pocketing the margin created by the wheat subsidy. All we can say with certainty is that at least one of these groups is telling the truth, but none will make a hard push to address it. The situation is even worse in flood-hit areas, which were struggling even before supply problems began deteriorating in recent weeks. Despite several months having passed since the floods, many victim have still not received the aid they were promised at the time, what to say of food aid to address the more recent brewing disaster. In fact, recent reports suggest that ghee and cooking oil shortages are also on the horizon because forex restrictions are stopping local companies from acquiring imported oil, and the prices of meat and flour have been shooting up since the end of December.

This rising food inflation has been especially hard on the poor. Some industry groups claim that poor people have seen their cost of living increase by over 50% since food already constituted a much higher share of their spending. And with no respite in sight, expect more tragedy as people struggle over scraps to survive.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 10^th, 2023.

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