Per capita income over the last ten years has increased, but it is far less than rate of inflation. Therefore, it has resulted in low access to food for people of the country. Data available with Profit reveals that rate of income growth remained considerably lower than inflation rate. This in turn has created huge problems for masses and is also creating problems for food access. Economic access to food is largely determined by purchasing power of people, which is decreasing day by day. With inflation outpacing growth in income, access to food has become further difficult for people.
According to World Bank report, there is no doubt that per capita income i.e. purchasing power parity (PPP) has increased in Pakistan since 2000 from $1,690 to $2,680 in 2009 but at the same time inflation grew rapidly. It is pertinent to mention that in inflation trend, inflation of food items remained high as compared to general inflation, which is also an alarming sign for policymakers. In majority of years, rise in income was outpaced by inflation, thus causing decrease in real purchasing power. Simultaneously, unemployment rate has increased gradually over the years and in 2008 it touched 5.7 per cent. Inflation rates remained below double digits till 2007 but later on there was a sharp increase and crossed even the 20 per cent mark in 2008. Disaggregating inflation into food and non-food categories reflects that food inflation remained far more than non-food inflation thus highlighting concern for food access in recent years. Recent increase in inflation was due to certain reasons including poor governance, which increased smuggling, hoarding and profiteering resulting in artificial shortage and increase in prices. Lack of marketing and shortage of storage facilities have also contributed to demand push inflation. Economists believe that if current trend prevailed then it would be very dangerous in coming years and would cause poverty and low access to food for masses.
