Economic experts and civil society leaders have expressed concern on the emerging food insecurity in the province and warned of worst famine in the near future if the government fails in developing and implementing post-flood livelihood restoration plans.
This was disclosed in the papers presented at a conference on ‘Floods and Food Security Challenges in Sindh, Pakistan’ organised by Participatory Development Initiatives (PDI) in collaboration with Oxfam GB under it’s GROW campaign on Saturday. Dr Shahida Wizarat – a renowned economist and researcher – stated in her paper that according to a recent study, 48.6 percent of the Pakistani population is facing food insecurity and this percentage has increased even more after heavy rains and flooding in Sindh for two last consecutive years.
“Eighty out of 130 districts in the country are food deficient, out of which 45 are extremely food insecure.” Speaking on the occasion, she said that the incidence of food poverty is found to be higher in the rural areas (35 percent) than the urban areas (26 percent). “The recent floods have increased the food insecurity levels in rural Sindh which would certainly affect the urban food security levels also.”
Criticising the governmental policies of encouraging corporate farming and cultivation of genetically modified crops as answer to growing food insecurity, Wizarat claimed that corporate forming would, on the contrary, further increase food insecurity. “Corporate farming will turn small peasants into landless agricultural workers and lead to further increase in the poverty level and aggravate food insecurity in the country.”
The researcher demanded that a national food security policy be prepared for the country to face the challenges of growing food shortage, suggesting that all cultivable government lands not underwater currently should be immediately distributed among poor flood-affected communities in Sindh to prevent the threat of emerging famine like situation.
Lamenting on the government’s failure in providing adequate relief to the flood-affected communities in Sindh, economic expert Prof Mohammed Ismail Kumbhar said the displaced people are facing severe food insecurity and even deaths have been reported due to hunger, while the government has failed to provide food to the flood-hit people.
Challenging the official assertion that floodwaters would recede within a month, he said the standing water would take at least three months to retreat and the farmers would not be able to cultivate winter crops especially wheat – the main food crop of the province. While presenting his paper, Dr Fateh Mohammed Marri said the weaker sections of the society, especially women, have been the worst-hit by the flooding.
“There is a dire requirement of improving social safety needs to address the needs of the weaker sections of society.” He also emphasised on the restoration of historical and natural waterways of Sindh to remove the floodwaters from different districts of the province.
