Securing food

As the world’s eighth-largest food-producing nation, Pakistan should, in theoretical terms, not really be facing a problem of hunger. But practically, we know that food insecurity is present in many parts of the country, affecting 50 per cent of the population, according to figures from international groups. We see evidence of this everywhere: in the children digging through garbage heaps to collect scraps of food, or the crowds that collect instantly wherever food is being distributed. And, of course, we see it when drought results in the deaths of hundreds of children in Tharparkar, or we look at the bleak figures which show nearly half our children are stunted or wasted, having failed to reach the expected height or weight for age.

In this situation, the step taken by the federal government to set up a National Food Security Commission (NFSC), which will run under the Ministry for Food Security and Research and will be chaired by the prime minister himself is good news. Such a body should have been set up many years ago. We wait now to see how useful its role will be. The mandate of the NFSC is to coordinate between the provinces and the centre on food-related policies, promote agricultural development and export and tackle food insecurity at all levels. This is without doubt an essential need. We hope that the body, announced in this year’s budget with an allocation set aside for it, will perform its role effectively and help tackle the acute need for food we see whenever calamity hits in the form of flood, drought or the conflict currently on in the northern parts of the country. While hunger is a key humanitarian concern, a host of other problems stem from it. Poverty and food insecurity go together, and contribute to other problems such as militancy and crime. Our national security thus depends on improving the condition of our people. It is, therefore, imperative that the issue of food insecurity and the factors that feed it be tackled. The new commission will need to come up with a plan of action to manage this for both the short and long term.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 27^th,  2014.

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