ISLAMABAD – Minister for Food and Agriculture Nazar Mohammad Gondal on Thursday said the country’s food production and supply chain was intact and the availability of ample food stocks meant that there were no chances of food insecurity in the country in the near future.
Addressing a press conference, the minister called “baseless” the news report that warned of food insecurity in the near future, saying the country was self sufficient in all staple foods. He said the production of staple crops, including wheat, rice, gram pulses, potato, sugar, maize, tomatoes and milk was in surplus, so there was no question of food shortage in the country.
“Pakistan is the safest country in the world as far as food security is concerned,” Gondal said. He said the floods did not cause major damage to wheat stocks as only 120,000 tonnes of wheat stocked in Sindh were washed away. He said the country had exportable surplus of 2 million tonnes of wheat and after obtaining permission from the government, 200,000 tonnes had already been exported.
There were about 3.5 million tonnes of potato production, while the country’s annual requirement was 1.5 million tonnes, tomatoes production was 0.5 million tonnes against a demand of 0.35 million tonnes per annum. Gondal said the production of gram was 561,000 tonnes as compared to a consumption of 550,000 tonnes, while the production of milk was 43.56 million tonnes against a demand of 35.2 million tonnes.
