58pc of Pakistanis facing ‘food insecurity’
Refugees who fled fighting in Swat wait to get bread in Jalozai camp in Peshawar, May 20, 2009. — Photo by AP/File
ISLAMABAD, Oct 16: The Senate was informed on Tuesday that up to 58 per cent of the country’s population suffered from ‘food insecurity’.
Giving details, the Minister for National Food Security and Research, Mir Israrullah Zehri, told the upper house of parliament that in 2007-08 it was estimated by the World Bank and UNDP that 17.2 per cent of the population was below the poverty line.
He said: “According to the National Nutrition Survey 2011 conducted by the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), around 58 per cent of the population is food insecure.”
Of the total affected population, he said, 29.6 per cent suffered from hunger or severe hunger.
The Senate was informed about various studies conducted by non-governmental organisations too, including a study titled “Food Insecurity in Pakistan 2009” carried out by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) in 2009.
The SDPI study showed that 48.6 per cent of the population was food insecure, out of which 22.4 per cent was extremely poor.
The minister also painted a bleak picture of the remedial measures being adopted by the government and said his ministry had presented a ‘National Zero Hunger Programme’ to the prime minister at a workshop held on March 21.
“The announcement by prime minister during the workshop has yet to be formally approved,” the minister added.
The minister also acknowledged that the draft Zero Hunger Action Plan prepared by the World Food Programme (WFP) lacked operational details.
“To prepare a comprehensive Zero Hunger plan with clearly spelt-out activities and further engagements with donors and local stakeholders would be required,” he said.
However, he added that the government had taken measures to improve food security by revitalising agriculture production and by providing incentives to the farming community.
This is so sad and so hard to comprehend. Our ministers are announcing bounties to kill an American film producer, and our special commentators (Zaid hamid and Hamid Gul) are busy building rightwing religious groups to defend Pakistan. Despite all this, Pakistanis would rather eat grass for thousand years and build destructive weapons, wage a thousand year war against India and other infidels, and maintain their strategic asset (Taliban) in NWFP.
Does anyone from government have guts to take a look at the urge and signs of hunger and desperation on these pretty young faces? Is there one single leader that gets up and gives the call for a long march about the matter? Nations progress when backed with good economy and stable social conditions… Please do something about it and save our future generations !!
Ask Mr. Shafiq Rahman for the bounty money of one million Dollars to spend for your cause against the food insecurity now prevailing in Pakistan. May be he is not aware of the food shortage and economic instability currently prevailing in Pakistan.
This is really shameful for the Government who can’t do any progressive steps in rural areas. In different platform, my eyes went into tears when I saw that a father can’t give Rs. 5 to his daughter 9 years old and later child went to somewhere in anger where 3 people raped her and killed her. Families main resource person killed in different target killing incidents where family suffer from day to day domestic problem including food insecurity. Did anyone notice how 250 families would be living when there income resource was burnt down in the fire in the factory last month in Karachi.
Every politician is now busy in election to again beat the citizen with stress, hunger, mental disturbance, insecurity..list goes on…
true