Pak's defence spending costs it people food

Islamabad: Almost half of Pakistan's population of 170 million lack food security because of the impact of the war on terror on the country's economy, a new report says.

Food insecurity has affected 48.6 percent of the people in varying degrees, says the report, 'The State of Food Security' in Pakistan, prepared by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.

It says that the government has to prioritise its limited resources among defence-related expenditures on curbing militancy, debt retirement, administration and public sector development, the Dawn newspaper reported on Thursday.

Defence and debt retirement may take priority but the military-food insecurity nexus cannot be ignored, the report says, urging a new paradigm in which food insecurity should not be treated merely as a humanitarian issue but as a national security issue.

The report endorses a recommendation of the Planning Commission's task force on food security on formulating national food security strategy.

The report suggests that primary focus of this strategy should be ensuring food security in the extremely food insecure districts. It says that 80 of Pakistan's 131 districts (61 percent) are food insecure. Of these, 45 districts (34 percent) are extremely food insecure, up from 38 in 2003.

The number of districts in the second category more than doubled in 2009 to 35 from 16 in 2003, while the percentage of food secure districts declined from 34 percent to 20 percent.

The report is a follow-up of the Food Security Analysis of Rural Pakistan, 2003 report that the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) produced in collaboration with World Food Programme.

The report notes that even the better-off districts are losing their pace of development and many people cannot earn sufficient money to meet their basic needs like food.

Food and Agriculture Minister Nazar Mohammad Gondal said at the launch of the report on Wednesday that ensuring food security had become a challenging task against the backdrop of soaring food prices in 2007-08 and the situation had been aggravated by the global economic meltdown in 2009.

He said the war on terror was hurting the already food insecure areas of the country.

"We are now aiming to sustain an average agricultural growth rate of four percent per annum over the next decade and to implement a transparent and well-managed system of safety nets to provide income support to poor households," Gondal said.