ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for National Food Security and Research Tariq Bashir Cheema on Wednesday on the floor of the National Assembly disputed a United Nations report regarding possible “acute food insecurity” in Pakistan, terming it “an effort to spread sensationalism and declare the country a hunger hotspot like African countries”.

Responding to a calling attention notice moved by Aliya Kamran of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) “regarding expected acute food shortage in the country as reported by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and World Food Programme (WFP)”, the minister categorically stated that sufficient food stock was available to meet the country’s requirements and “there is absolutely no need to worry about in this regard”.

“I do not fully agree with the report. These are pressure tactics when the WFP and the FAO prepare such reports. I think they have tried to spread sensationalism as there is no such situation,” said the minister.

The FAO-WFP in their jointly published report covering the June to November 2023 period has claimed that acute food insecurity in Pakistan is likely to further exacerbate in coming months if the economic and political crisis further worsens, compounding the effects of the 2022 floods.

Terms UN report ‘attempt to spread sensationalism’; claims country will not require wheat import this year; NA adjourned till budget on June 9

It notes that amid the current global economic slowdown, mounting public debt has exacerbated the ongoing financial crisis in Pakistan, stating that that authorities will have to repay $77.5 billion external debt between April 2023 and June 2026, a substantial amount considering the country’s GDP of $350bn in 2021.

The two UN agencies have further warned that acute food insecurity is likely to deteriorate further in 81 hunger spots — comprising a total of 22 countries during the outlook period from June to November 2023. According to the report, Pakistan, the Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Kenya, Congo and Syria are hotspots with very high concern, and the warning is also extended to Myanmar.

The minister said the report had made the country’s GDP in 2021 as the baseline which was $350bn at that time and which had now reduced due to the non-finalisation of the IMF programme. He said Pakistan was required to repay $76bn loans in the next three years. He said Pakistan was repaying all the loans on time.

Mr Cheema said the country imported three major crops — pulses, edible oil seeds and tea. He said last year the import bill of oil seeds was $4.5bn and this year due to increase in the sowing area in Punjab and Sindh, they would be able to reduce the import bill to a great extent.

Referring to the FAO-WFP report, he alleged that the two UN agencies wanted to declare Pakistan a “hotspot” for famine like African countries.

He said Pakistan had a bumper wheat crop this year and 28.5 million tonnes of wheat production had been recorded, along with the carry-over stock of the previous year.

He expressed the hope that there would be no need to import the commodity this year.

He also expressed the hope that they would have bumper crops of rice and maize this year. Besides this, he said, they had 7.9 million tonnes production of potato which was much better than the previous year. He said the Kissan Package announced by the government also played a role in improving the agriculture production.

Ms Kamran, however, drew the attention of the minister towards food inflation, stating that the State Bank of Pakistan had reported that the products were available in the country but the prices were so high that these were not affordable to the people. She said the government was spending nearly Rs1bn in imports of pulses and the government should also focus to reduce the import bill.

The minister agreed that there was hike in food prices, but said the government was making efforts to provide relief to the poor through various programmes like Benazir Income Support Programme. He hoped that they would be able to become self-sufficient in pulses too as they had started research work in this regard.

Speaker Raja Pervez Ashraf adjourned the sitting of the house until 4pm on June 9 when the government is expected to present the federal budget for the next financial year.

Published in Dawn, June 1st, 2023