The topic of Food Security was not in the limelight for many reasons as it should have been since our main focus was on strategic and foreign policy doctrine during past years and what Pakistan has to do to adjust strategically as well as tactically to curb and maneuver regional and global challenges that were forthcoming. However, observing the recent global events and rising concerns on supply chain issues and lack of food security worldwide, it is now become imperative to put more focus on this emerging danger that can impact vast population of the world, specifically those in the low income and poor countries.
A lot of seminars/webinars and scholastic discussions are ongoing on food security topic and experts are trying to find out ways to mend the shortage of food supplies in the near future, that is fundamental for the existence of mankind. The Ukraine War is deepening global food insecurity. even before Russia invaded Ukraine, the global economy was suffering from the repercussions of several man-made conflicts, climate shocks and natural disasters, the impact of COVID-19 and rising food costs.
Ukraine, which is seen as a major “breadbasket” for the world due to its vast supply chain to the world, is also facing challenges as the war with Russia is deepening the food security challenges on an unprecedented scale. As the war drags on, the already record levels of acute food insecurity are expected to rise exponentially. The latest food insecurity crisis spreading around the world is not happening in a vacuum. Amid the COVID pandemic, supply chain issues and soaring inflation, global food prices have been on the rise since mid-2020 and are now at an all-time high.
Global food markets are extremely concentrated, both in terms of supplies and reserves. Such concentrated and thin markets mean that when crises like the war in Ukraine happen, the global supply of food can be derailed quickly, leading to high costs.
For example, insurance premiums are skyrocketing for vessels operating in the Black Sea, this only further raises prices of staple foods. Many countries are turning to alternative sources, but cost increases are also associated with these maneuvers. Countries in Europe or the Middle East that relied on Russian or Ukrainian food imports now suddenly have to pivot by acquiring them from Canada or Australia, for example, which will be more expensive given the greater distance being traveled.
Shocks like the war in Ukraine put into stark relief that food insecurity challenges are not always related to availability issues, rather it’s a question of accessibility and affordability. At the UN and international academia level, many programs and studies are in progress about handling the food security challenges.
These studies mainly focus on increasing yields, profitability, and environmental sustainability, developing the varieties and breeds needed for sustainable food systems, decreasing food loss and waste through more efficient distribution systems, creating and sharing resources that serve all populations, ensuring inclusive and equitable food systems and finally, ensuring a safe and secure food supply that protects and improves the vast global population health.
Having said the above elaborated background for the sake of the readers’ awareness, now lets us focus on what would the impact be on Pakistan and the region relating to challenges related to food security. The challenges for Pakistan have started towards skyrocket decline but I do not see any serious plan from any credible resources to offset this, and no one appears to be even talking about it. Amongst the various challenges Pakistan has to face, one big challenge is to manage the huge influx towards urbanization and diminishing agriculture lands.
Expanding Urban population and Consequences
This is the global phenomenon especially in the developing countries and is getting worse due to the simple reason that people are migrating from rural areas to established cities and urban lands for more opportunities, whether education, jobs or business. The equation is simple, the more people there are especially in poor countries with limited amounts of land and water, the fewer are the resources to meet basic needs.
Amongst the negative consequences of rapid urbanization, has been a shift in production patterns of food, highly correlated with access to processed foods that is utterly unhealthy. The other bad consequence of rapid urban growth is the spread of infectious diseases. Consequently, death rates in urban areas historically were higher than in rural areas.
The problems associated with urbanization are: high population density, inadequate infrastructure, lack of affordable housing, flooding, pollution, slum creation, crime, congestion, and poverty. Some major health problems resulting from urbanization include poor nutrition, pollution-related health conditions, communicable diseases, poor sanitation, poor housing conditions and general related health conditions.
In Pakistan specifically, we noticed that major cities like Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad and Multan have registered massive growth in terms of rural to urban migration.
As a direct consequence of this migration, the people who were associated with agriculture profession, tend to sell their lands and rather buy real estate land for residential and business reasons in major cities. The farming/agriculture land they sold, turns out to be the real estate projects, resulting in diminishing farming lands that in turn badly impact our national food security.
Only a decade ago Pakistan was a food rich country, but unfortunately since the Real Estate Mafia has come into action buying out agriculture lands in order to further develop residential real estate societies, Pakistan is forced to import the basic food necessities and this is creating a huge burden on our foreign exchange, economy and also negatively contributing to the national GDP.
The catastrophic floods in Pakistan have pushed the country into the brink. These floods follow the COVID-19 pandemic, rising inflation and the most severe heatwave the country has faced in more than 60 years.
Due to these factors, Pakistan which was a food surplus country, was now ranked 92nd out of 116 countries on the Global Hunger Index in 2021 and according to the International Food Security Assessment by the US Department of Agriculture, in the coming decade a total of 38 percent of the population of Pakistan is going to be food insecure.
As mentioned above one of the problems faced by us is pollution that is primarily caused by over growth of a city as was recently seen in Pakistan and this is the direct result of uncontrolled urban spread. Air pollution is a growing environmental problem in most major cities of Pakistan.
According to a World Bank report, “Karachi’s urban air pollution is among the most severe in the world and it engenders significant damages to human health and the economy. In addition to uncontrolled urban growth, industrial policies and practices in Pakistan also compound the pollution problem.
The lack of awareness, lack of law enforcement and unemployment due to urbanization is a big challenge to handle pollution concerns in Pakistan. Moreover, reports pointing to the burning of tires to power factory units and brick kilns, while farmers burn their fields to prepare for more planting are also other factors that increase pollution in Pakistan.
Pakistan is also trying to curb the pollution problem and in the past three years over 7,000 conventional brick kilns have been converted into “zigzag” kilns, resulting in a 60% reduction in black carbon emissions, a 40% reduction in particulate matter emissions, and a 15% reduction in CO2 emissions, yet lack of law enforcement and requisite will of the leadership, the success that was gained went back to ground zero.
Food security has four interrelated elements: availability, access, utilization, and stability.
Availability:
The availability of food ingredients are being squeezed every year due to expansion of realestate business and urbanization. Legislation needs to be done to stop such uncontrolled squeezing of the farm and agricultural lands.
Access: Even for the remaining agricultural and food items that still being produced within Pakistan, it is of utmost important to develop a network of roads and transportation structure to get them to markets, like easy access for the farmers to consumer markets.
Utilization: Utilization needs to be improved for a healthy society. Upgrading the food processors that supply consumers with their milled or processed products offers significant scope to improve utilization at scale in areas where the poor are purchasing.
Stability: This element is directly related to the political stability of the country that has a huge impact on food security due to uncertainty caused by political chaos among other things.
Unfortunately, Pakistan at this time is passing through its very negative internal crisis due to political instability that is caused by decades long experimentation on political elites that prevented a natural evolution of political leadership.
• For Pakistan, food security is a matter of national security as well. So, it needs to address food insecurity in both rural and urban areas via multi-sectoral interventions that improve production, processing, transport, storage, and marketing. It also needs to make markets more accessible for both the producers and the consumers.
• Develop local/rural based facilities and infrastructure to prevent urban growth. It includes basic life necessities, job opportunities along with basic health facilities.
• Curb expanding residential societies by strict and meaningful legislation; we have been observing the rapid spread of real estate business and uncontrolled residential societies. The land and real estate groups buy agriculture land at cheap prices and develop residential landmarks that in fact boost the pressure of agriculture farm lands, this creates a huge gap in terms of national self-sufficiency in food sector.
• Encourage agriculture sector with Planning and Research & Development. Food related Agriculture can be improved by demonstrating at least three technologies e.g. Utilizing drone technology, calibration of spraying equipment, digitalization of pest monitoring and surveillance data and remote sensing. Furthermore, apply international best practices to ensure safe and environmentally friendly management of locusts and other pests.
• Encourage vertical farming in addition to modernizing agriculture sector, etc.
• Pakistan is experiencing worst impact of climate change due to the developed countries emitting greenhouse gases. Thankfully, Pakistan is raising this issue at the UN level, but this requires more emphasis from the Pakistan government in order to get a fruitful outcome.
