Food security in Pakistan Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Food security in Pakistan - Essay Example It will also attempt to provide evaluative recommendations to shape more efforts toward human security. Pakistan Situation Hunger is a chronic malady that causes malnutrition, illness, and death. Food crisis swept across Pakistan affecting (Husain, 2009) half of its total population who can’t avail the minimum consumption needs since most of its 121 districts confront problems on malnutrition, hunger and economic depravity. As it confronts the demand of contemporary social affairs, the government is on one hand dispensing governance amid (Husain, 2009) economic instability, a condition that aggravated the condition of the hungry and those in deplorable circumstances. Sociologists expressed serious concern that tribal areas, Baluchistan and Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP), resided mostly of landless farmers, are the most vulnerable to hunger. Toor (2000; 100) posit that the crisis started when there was mis-prioritization of government’s agenda to extraction industr y instead of agricultural programs. It was perceived that the decision of debt-ridden Musharraf’s administration to undergo structural adjustment packages under the policies of World Bank-International Monetary Fund (WB-IMF) as one of the major causes of poverty. The adjustment trimmed down the budgetary subsidy for wheat production and exported produce to external markets, thus prompting farmers to divert to cash-crops farming to meet both ends (Toor, 2000: 101). Said structural adjustment directly affected social services too, such as education, health, public utilities and transportation. Worst, as subsidy for agriculture was compacted, the percentage of taxes levied to people also increased but there is less empirical evidence of outcomes that ‘augmented taxation’ contributed to vigorous delivery of social services in the country. Throughout the last decade, the Islamic Republic, with an ideation of democratic governance for an estimated population of 187 mil lion (UN, 2011 and Statistics Division Government of Pakistan, 2011) suffered fluctuating level of foreign investment, extreme poverty, slow growth rate and unemployment. Its foreign and domestic debt reached to $57.21 billion (2010 estimates). Of their human resource, 15% are unemployed, 40% were landless (Toor, 2000: 103) while the economy ailed with budget deficit as national expenditures rose to estimated $ 36.24 billion as against the revenue of $25.33 billion (WFP, 2011). Inflation of commodities coupled with agricultural devastation caused by disasters is seriously affecting them (UN, 2011). The situation is further compounded in the mid part of the millennium when the whole country suffered catastrophic destruction due to earthquakes and flood. Aside from this ecological concern, they are beset with heightening tension in Kashmir-- a region considered under territorial dispute (WFP, 2011) although the region is currently deployed with peacekeepers to diffuse tension among cl aimant countries: China (Aksai Chin), India (Jammu and Kashmir), and Pakistan (Azad Kashmir and Northern Areas) (WFP, 2011). Moreover, Pakistan is also host of Afghan refugees estimated at 1.05 million of displaced population. Due to domestic conflict, the country also suffered millions of displacement in 2010 (WFP, 2011).