Pakistan’s food insecurity
Food insecurity exists when
people live with hunger and fear starvation. It is defined
as a situation that exists when people lack secure access to
sufficient amounts of safe and nutritious food for normal
growth and development, and an active and healthy life. To
achieve food security, sufficient and nutritious food needs
to be available and accessible. It also needs to be properly
utilised. Food availability, access and utilisation together
form three pillars determining household food security.
Living without the fear of hunger is a basic human right
Agriculture is the mainstay of
Pakistan’s economy, accounting for 25 percent of the GDP, 60
percent of export earnings and 48 percent of employment.
Despite being rich in
agriculture, the National Nutrition Survey 2011 (NNS 2011)
reported that 62 percent of Pakistan’s population is food
insecure, while the International Food Policy Research
Institute’s (IFPRI’s) Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2014 states
that Pakistan is one of the most food insecure countries in
Asia.
The country has been ranked at
number 57 on the GHI after Uganda, which is at number 56.
The question arises: what is wrong with our food security?
If one diagnoses the issue in depth, it will be obvious that
food insecurity is due to unavailability of agriculture,
food, environment, land related policies and the
government’s lethargy in tackling hunger and food insecurity
on a priority basis.
It has been observed that the
worst victims of food insecurity are fishermen, peasants and
farm labourers who are mostly landless members of society.
Reasearch Show that sleep deprivation leads to
degenration in performacne and higher land inquality is
associated with higher level of deprivaation and poverty.
According to studies
conducted by the National Peasants Coalition of Pakistan (NPCP),
Sindh Land Reforms Movement (SLRM), People’s Network on Food
and Agriculture (PNFA) and a Panos South Asia study on
Pakistan’s land reforms, “Land distribution in Pakistan is
highly unequal as five percent large landholders possess 64
percent of total farm land and 65 percent small farmers hold
15 percent of such land.
The large landholders have
all the political powers and economic advantages. Around
50.8 percent of rural households are landless while the
poverty amongst the rural landless people is high.
The power of landowners is
really a monopoly that has served as a barrier to the social
and economic progress of the poor and is one of the major
reasons behind food insecurity in the country.”
A case study of Pakistan on corporate agriculture farming
written by Dr Rafique Chandio, which was also published in
the Berkeley Journal of Social Sciences, says: “Over six
million families in Pakistan own 50 million acres of land
and around 94 percent of its farmers fall into the
subsistence category.
They cultivate less than 12.5
acres of land. Around 20 million people work in the grossly
over-employed agriculture sector.
Even if a fraction of farmers
is thrown out, there is no sector strong enough to absorb
it. It only proves the magnitude of social vulnerability and
the country needs to be careful in trading a risky path.”
In the past, the corporate
sector technically influenced Pakistani governments for
taking unwise and wrong decisions, declaring land reforms as
un-Islamic — the Corporate Farming Ordinance 2000 is part of
it.
But, it is no less than a
wonder that even after the passage of the 18th
Constitutional Amendment of Pakistan, the ministry of
national food security and research was created at the
federal level by the present government while food, land and
agriculture related matters were subject to the provinces.
Experts are of the view that the ministry of national food
security and research has a very limited role and it has
chosen to uphold the corporate agenda in the name of food
security. The discourse does not end here but it further
proves the linkages between the ministry and transnational
corporations in Pakistan.
Furthermore, the Seed Act
2015, passed by Pakistan’s Senate, has been termed as highly
controversial because of the fact that the basic rights of
farmers and growers on the right to seeds has been violated
by the act. It also promotes genetically modified organisms
(GMOs) in the country.
The draft of the food
security policy is under development by the ministry of food
security and research, which also reflects corporate
influence from its first sentence to its last.
Vision 2015-2025, drafted by
the Planning Commission of Pakistan, has seven pillars, five
of which are corporate-oriented.
The recent Prime Minister’s (PM’s)
Agriculture Package is also no more than a political move
and influenced by corporations. Hence, we again are on the
wrong path, as right to food and food security are still
questionable.
According to the World Food Summit, the UN’s Food and
Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO’s) definitions and Food
First Information and Action Network’s (FIAN’s)
international reports, “Food insecurity exists when people
live with hunger and fear starvation.
It is defined as a situation
that exists when people lack secure access to sufficient
amounts of safe and nutritious food for normal growth and
development, and an active and healthy life. To achieve food
security, sufficient and nutritious food needs to be
available and accessible. It also needs to be properly
utilised.
Food availability, access and
utilisation together form three pillars determining
household food security. Living without the fear of hunger
is a basic human right.”
The right to food is also recognised in Article 25 of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and Article 11
of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights (ICESCR) as well as a plethora of other
instruments.
The right to food is also
protected in Article 38-D of the Constitution of Pakistan.
If the present government really wants to strategise for
food security in the country and ensure the right to food,
it has to maximise the options.
A zero hunger programme and
other options would be much better but land reforms are
required not only to accelerate agricultural growth but also
to prevent the developing social crises associated with
poverty, food insecurity and disempowerment of peasants in
Pakistan’s rural society.
October, 2015
By:
Waheed Jamali
Source: Daily
Times