Reasons for Food Insecurity

Pakistan is one of the world’s largest wheat and rice producers. Wheat and rice play a primary role in the diet and food choices of Pakistanis, accounting for more than half of their daily consumed calories. The production of these crops in Pakistan is in mega tonnes. In 2020-2021, Pakistan produced roughly 25 million tonnes of wheat and around 8 million tonnes of rice. Along with wheat and rice, many other agri-food crops are being produced in Pakistan in huge quantities, including sugarcane.

Reports published by reputable organizations working on the theme of agriculture and food security, like the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP), and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), still reveal that Pakistan is facing high levels of food insecurity. This fact is further substantiated by other similar studies and surveys carried out by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) and the Future Directions International (FDI). According to the Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement (PSLM) 2019-2020 surveys conducted by PBS, as much as 16.44 percent of the households in the country face severe or moderate food insecurity. At the provincial level, food insecure households are rather less in Punjab (15.66%) and KPK (14.44%) as compared to Sindh (17.52%) and Balochistan (23.36%). These figures are the government’s official figures. The food insecurity rate calculated by other stakeholder organizations are way higher than these figures, with WFP saying it is 36%. The prevalence of food insecurity in the country raises the question that why does such insecurity prevail despite Pakistan producing surplus food?

This is very significant and it is pertinent to understand what food security and food insecurity mean?

A widely agreed definition of food security is one that is used by the FAO which defines food security in terms of “physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food”. In the light of this definition, scholars like Walter Fraanje and Samuel Lee-Gammage have tried to understand food security in terms of “availability of food” and “access to food”. Availability is concerned with the supply side, that is, the physical presence and inflow of food in a country or a market. Access, on the other hand, is concerned with the ability of households and individuals to buy and consume the available food.

In the context of Pakistan, it is agreed by almost every stakeholder in the field of agriculture and food security that the issue is not with the availability of food. This stands mostly true, except in some instances recently when wheat and sugar were scarce in the market due to hoarding by influential people involved in the trade of these items.

The actual cause pointed out is the “access to food”. Agricultural economists argue that it is the lack of means (money) to access food that is the cause of prevalent food insecurity. The proponents of this argument believe that the rise in food inflation has a direct relation with the increase in the number of food-insecure households in the country. According to Phoebe Sleet of the FDI research institute, although per capita income of Pakistan has increased, this increase has been outnumbered by the increase in food prices. Certainly, daily wages have increased but due to high inflation, purchasing power has declined. According to the findings of the study done by Sleet, the purchasing power of the skilled labourer class declined by 18.5% in 2019. This fall in purchasing power is a key factor in causing food insecurity as it significantly hinders access to food.

The arguments related to “availability” and “access” to food are related to physical and economic aspects of the definition of food security. The social aspect, however, is understudied so far. This aspect is very much related to the social structure of the Pakistani society.

Feudal lordship system shapes the social structure of Pakistan, where a huge number of people deriving their subsistence from agriculture do not own the land. In practical terms, ownership of the land and subsequently the ownership of food is only in the hands of a few, and the rest look up to them for survival. The possibility that in certain places “sufficient food” is inaccessible to certain social classes, cannot be denied. Focused studies, however, can reveal more of it.

In a nutshell, food insecurity in Pakistan is not because of availability issues. It is rather because of economic problems related to “access to food”. Increased inflation and decreased purchasing power are causing food insecurity. Moreover, the socio-economic structure of society and ownership of agricultural production can also be a significant factor to study in order to unearth more factors contributing to food insecurity.