FOOD SECURITY , CHALLENGES & DEVELOPMENTS FOR PAKISTAN Dr. Syed Asim Rehan Kazmi Director General PARC-Southernzone Agricultural Research Centre Karachi University Campus, Karachi
WHAT IS FOOD SECURITY? "Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences in order to lead a healthy and active life. ” (FAO, 2006)
WHAT IS FOOD SECURITY / BIOECONOMY? FOOD SECURITY It highlights the necessity to increase food production and productivity to meet future demand. It stresses that the central problem today is access to food, and thus involves redistributive public policies in terms of income and employment. BIOECONOMY A bioeconomy is one based on the use of research and innovation in the biological sciences to create economic activity and public benefit. The U.S. bioeconomy is all around us: new drugs and diagnostics for improved human health, higheryielding food crops, emerging biofuels to reduce dependency on oil, and biobased chemical intermediates, to name just a few. (Obama Adminstration Official Stretegy, White House 2012, p. 7)
WHY IS FOOD SECURITY SUCH A MAJOR CHALLENGE? The obvious reason is that all need food. But the major complexity is delivery of sufficient food to a national population. This is the reason why this issue is a priority for all countries, whether developing or developed.
WHAT CAUSES IT? Population growth: Pakistan has one of the highest population growth rates in the region. According to the World Development Indicators, the population growth rate in Pakistan stood at 1.95% in 2017. On the other hand, the population growth for India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka was below 1.14%. Fertility rate is 2.62 children per women in Pakistan, which is contributing to the rapid population growth. All other South Asian countries, except Afghanistan, have fertility rates close to the replacement level of 2.1.
WHAT CAUSES IT? Population growth: As per UN Report, Pakistan’s Population is expected to Cross 306 Million By 2050.
WHAT CAUSES IT? Changing tastes: Not only is the population growing, but its diet is changing too. As people become more affluent they start eating food that is richer in processed foods, meat and dairy. However, producing more meat means growing more grain.
WHAT CAUSES IT? Climate change: Currently, 40% of the world’s landmass is arid, and rising temperatures will turn more of it into desert. Over the past few decades, the cultivated area of the country has grown by some 40% while the population has risen around 4 times. Urban expansion has resulted into creation of megacities and has thus increased population pressure on cultivated land.
WHAT CAUSES IT? Water scarcity: This is another impending crisis. It takes roughly 1,500 litres of water to produce a kilogram of wheat, and about 16,000 litres to produce a kilogram of beef. In 2050, we’ll need twice as much water.
WHAT SHOULD PAKISTAN DO? To achieve food-secure and pro-poor agricultural growth, Pakistan needs to adopt a comprehensive approach towards increasing productivity of all foods. Focus upon achieving just wheat-based food security shouldn’t be the target. To manage food security, Pakistan must develop an understanding about its dimensions including: Future challenges of agricultural growth and food security. Impact of agricultural policies on food supply and income. Poor vulnerable in rural and urban areas and other do-able options.
FOOD SECURITY SITUATION IN PAKISTAN Pakistan has a semi-industrialized economy with a well-integrated sector of agriculture. Out of the total area of 79.6 million hectares, 21.2 million hectares are cultivated; the rest of the territory is rangelands. Cropped area constitutes 23.8 million hectares, forests – 4.21 million hectares. Almost 80 percent of the cultivated area is irrigated. The country has the world’s largest contiguous irrigation system. The country is among the world’s top ten producers of wheat, cotton, sugarcane, mango, dates and kinnow oranges, and holds 13th position in rice production. Despite its impressive and continuously growing amounts of agricultural production, the country is struggling with significant levels of food insecurity.
FOOD SECURITY SITUATION IN PAKISTAN According to World Food Programme (2009), more than 48 percent of the population is food insecure. FATA has the highest percentage of food insecure population (67.7 percent) followed by Balochistan (61.2 percent) and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (56.2 percent). Large amounts of agricultural production and the continuously increasing population place high demands on Pakistan’s water resources. At present, the annual per capita availability of water in Pakistan is estimated at about 1,100 cubic meters; below 1,000 cubic meters, countries begin experiencing chronic water stress (Population Action International, 1993).
FOOD SECURITY SITUATION IN PAKISTAN Per Capita Availability of Calories (KCal)
FOOD SECURITY SITUATION IN PAKISTAN In view of continuously rising population, the food demand in the country shall naturally increase. However, it is worth mentioning that future food demand would be different from today's because of the factors like: (a) increased proportion of older people due to age longevity (b) greater urbanization and emergence of big cities (c) changes in family composition and structure (d) changes in food consumption patterns and habits (e) prevalence of diseases like Cardiac, Diabetic and Hepatitis etc. having special food requirements (f) rapid penetration of Super Markets and international Food Chains in developing countries. To target such diversions in food consumption in future, the major focus should be to incentivize the agricultural production to future needs.
FUTURE CHALLENGES Both supply- and demand-side issues of food security need to be addressed to achieve sustainable food security. Pakistan has enormous potential to further develop its agriculture sector upon which a major chunk of population directly or indirectly depends for their livelihood. However, Pakistan economy is experiencing structural transformations and the role of agriculture in economic development is changing fast - its share in national GDP is declining faster than proportion of labor seeking livelihood from this sector. Also, a very small proportion of farms experiencing fast modernization, while majority of the farmers are resource poor and operate in low-input, low- output scenario.
FUTURE CHALLENGES Pakistan can counter these challenges by developing farm and non-farm sectors as well as reducing polarization within agriculture sector either by helping the inefficient farmer to approach the frontier or helping them to finding alternative livelihood in the non-farm sector. At current rate of population growth, Pakistan needs to increase substantial food production to feed a growing population with some modest surpluses for exports. Substantial increase in crop productivity has to be targeted using lesser land and water resources than are available for agriculture today.
WAY FORWARD The major hindrance in achieving food security in developing countries including Pakistan is the high levels of poverty, and thus poverty reduction is the most powerful tool to improve food security that can be achieved through equitable economic growth. In Pakistan most of the poor live in rural areas and are directly and/or indirectly dependent on the performance of agriculture sector. Besides improving food security of urban population, food security of rural households can be improved by increasing agricultural productivity. For increasing agricultural productivity, a number of services and support institutions need to be either strengthened or to be created including developing IPRs (Intellectual Property Rights) for promoting R&D in private sector.
WAY FORWARD The goals and priorities of the research have to be reformed both at the federal and provincial levels. An infrastructure of experiment stations in various ecological zones in partnership with the progressive farmers (small, medium and large, to evaluate the adaptability/applicability of the innovations under local conditions) need to be developed. Research policies have to be focused on cropping zones and their development to increase systems profitability. No egalitarian approach of one-size-fits-all shall apply. New programme interventions particularly in remote areas for training technicians in agriculture and non-agriculture enterprises also need to be initiated. Trained technicians can bring revolution in agriculture as well as in non-agriculture sectors.
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