A much more integrated approach to agriculture is needed that simultaneously takes into account a range of issues, from water management to provision of inputs to marketing of produce, and also the need for agricultural research
Ensuring adequate food production seems like a rather rudimentary goal for the human race as a whole. Yet overcoming the acute global food crisis has yet to become possible even as we have entered a new millennium.
There are a range of factors fuelling the current manifestation of the food crisis, including an exponential growth of the world’s population as well as changing diet patterns, the growing demand for bio-fuel production from raw food produce, and the impact of climate change.
As a result, the level of hunger in the world is not really decreasing at present. The issue at hand is not just malnutrition of people, in many cases an outright famine situation continues to prevail. According to some estimates, almost 950 million are afflicted by famine-like conditions. The prevalent scope of this problem seems outrageous given the advancements made in biotechnology and other agriculture related processes, or the demonstrated logistical capabilities of transporting varied items around the world, as well as the sophistication of global markets.
Yet there are internal constrains posed by these above mentioned advancements, which in turn enable famine-like situations to continue. The price of food for instance has played a major role in exacerbating the current food crisis. Last year, food prices in the world markets suddenly increased by 55 percent, while rice prices in Asia almost tripled. This spike in the prices on staple food products severely hit the poor countries, where the share of food costs averaged between 50 and 90 percent.
Although the global focus has already shifted to contending with other economic issues, food security problems have not dissipated. Moreover they will remain urgent during the ongoing period of recovery from the economic crisis. The global consumer demand for food commodities has decreased significantly. The food basket in the rich countries has not only shrunk, it is now much cheaper. In poorer countries, hunger itself is on the rise.
To address the problem of the world’s ‘hunger-struck billion’, the need for establishing a global food reserves management system was floated at the last G8 Agricultural Ministers meeting. Setting up such an entity could facilitate quick provision of grain supplies for humanitarian aid to countries in dire need.
It is however important to reach a fair balance between the benefits of food surplus export and the potential dependency syndrome, since regular food aid may lead recipient countries to lose the spur to resolve existing problems by their own means.
In order to understand the on-ground challenges of boosting food security to overcome malnutrition and famine like conditions, let us take a closer look at the compulsions surrounding food production within the specific context of Pakistan. In spite of the significant progress that our country has made in food production over the last sixty years, most poor communities have to deal with uncertainty in food security on a daily basis, year after year, and most often generation after generation.
Pakistan was committed to reducing the number of malnourished people from 26 million in the early 1990s to 13 million in 2015. The country, after making good progress till 1997, began moving in the reverse direction. The undernourished population has increased from 24 percent to 28 percent, implying that some 77 million in the country do not have enough to eat.
Expert deliberations concerning household food security have reiterated the fact that agriculture is of critical importance to Pakistan’s economy, both in terms of food security and exports. Despite 70 percent of agriculture being irrigated, the growth rate of agriculture is limited in the range of 3 to 4 percent.
Why agricultural production and food production are not growing sufficiently has to do with low yields, post-harvest losses, and soil degradation. Because of low returns, high risk and uncertainty, mid-sized farmers have shifted elsewhere from the agricultural sector. This has led to fragmentation of land holdings to a size where ensuring economic viability becomes very difficult, as well as accelerated urbanisation with its own set of related problems.
On the other hand, it has now also been recognised that food insecurity in Pakistan is not necessarily the function of underproduction and bad weather only. As of late 2007, increased farming for use in bio-fuels, world oil prices at nearly $120 a barrel, global population growth, climate change, loss of agricultural land to residential and industrial development, and growing consumer demand in neighbouring China and India all became evident factors pushing up the price of grains. Rising food prices in turn posed a very real threat to food security of the poor and led to growing malnutrition and hunger last year, particularly in Balochistan, the NWFP and parts of Sindh.
A much more integrated approach to agriculture is needed that simultaneously takes into account a range of issues, from water management to provision of inputs to marketing of produce, and also the need for agricultural research.
An Agriculture Committee was formed by the current prime minister last year to help remove impediments and bottlenecks in agriculture and facilitate growth, and to also act upon the findings of the Task Force on Food Security, which has completed its work and submitted its findings to the Planning Commission. These developments provide a good precedent of formulating agricultural policies based on research and empirical results instead of unsubstantiated assumptions.
Pakistan needs a coherent food policy that caters to the core functions of food security, ranging from food production to storage, distribution and pricing. Recurrent shortages instigated by crop failure, inappropriate export policies, and other phenomena like hoarding or smuggling, have become intolerable. Besides more equitable access to land and water, our poor farmers need to secure high value production as well as timely access to required inputs, and relevant market information. Unless more attention is given to these long neglected issues, providing adequate food to all our citizens will continue to remain an elusive goal.
The writer is a researcher. He can be contacted at ali@policy.hu
Comments
Post a Comment