An honest discussion on
Pakistan’s food security woes Balanced agriculture policies, and value chain investments are desperately needed to curb food inflation
By Abdullah Niazi
O
ne of the key conversations taking place all the time in both political and academic circles about Pakistan’s economy is the question of food security. As an agrarian economy, Pakistan has long relied on the fact that it is capable of producing enough food to fulfill the caloric requirements of its own population, and then have enough leftover to be an exporter. In reality, Pakistan has been a country with a serious food deficit problem for the last three to four decades. Despite the natural advantages that the country has in the shape of fertile land, access to fresh water, and a rich history of farming practices it has suffered in this regard mostly because of a lack of political will to improve and adapt agricultural practices with the times. Pakistan remains behind on value addition and storage, which means we waste a lot of produce and end up having to import food we could simply grow at home and actually even export. Some of the problems behind why Pakistan has faced the kind of issues it has are well known. Farmers are not encouraged to use modern farming methods, they are not provided with better seeds that are resistant to disease, and they tend to focus more on cash crops and less on farming for subsistence since
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the demand for money and services is high. This often leads to there being food shortages in rural areas where the food is actually grown rather than in urban centers - perhaps one of the reasons why Pakistan’s food security risks stay out of the media and out of public discourse. The problem is that whenever this topic comes up, the conversation surrounding it is boring because it has been done to death. Only last week the federal minister for food and agriculture, Fakhar Imam, said that he government is working to ensure availability of quality seeds, development of cold storage facilities and farm mechanisation to enhance per-acre
The world has moved on. It is not possible to have food security until we have harmony between rural and urban areas, and we know where we want to see the country in ten years Syed Mahmood Shah, Senior VP at Sindh Abadgar Board
output of major crops. “A lack of quality seeds, cold storage facilities, farm mechanisation, trained manpower, post-harvest management, processing industries, and digital agriculture platforms were the main hurdles in local agriculture development,” he said. The only problem is that all of these talking points have been done to death. What the federal minister has said can be parroted by any ninth grader that has glanced over the geography section of their Pakistan Studies’ textbooks. Quality seeds, cold storage, value addition, mechanisation and all these other buzzwords are well and good as bullet points, but there is more nuance with regards to where Pakistan’s current situation lies and the options that the country has in the face of its challenges. A discussion of great depth and insight on the topic took place at Karachi’s Institute of Business Administration (IBA) last week. IBA hosted a panel discussion of the Agri Webinar Series organized by Engro Fertilizers and the Pakistan Agricultural Coalition. The hybrid panel discussion had an audience attending in person in Karachi as well as a live stream link for those joining over the internet. The session, titled “Rethinking Pakistan’s approach to managing food inflation and strategic reserves”, included Dr Akbar Zaidi (Executive Director, IBA), Syed Mahmood Shah (Senior VP, Sindh Abadgar Board), Rashid Langrial (Additional Secretary, Min-
