Food scarcity reaching alarming levels in Pakistan

[Naveed Yaseen]

By Saad Khan

KARACHI: The scarcity of food items in the country has reached an alarming level, with the prices going up by the day despite the reported reduction in consumer price index-based inflation.

The media is flooded scenes of people waiting in long queues to buy commodities from subsidised bazaars set up by the government, but most
have only stories of disappointment to tell.

Various incidents of police baton charge and tear gas shelling on the aspiring shoppers are reported routinely, the worse being Sunday’s stampede outside a philanthropist’s premises in Karachi, which killed 18 people. But the food crisis has not emerged overnight.

Economists have warned of the probability of food shortage since the 1990’s and pointed towards declining household incomes as an indicator. People say it is appalling that a country with as strong an agriculture base as Pakistan is failing ensure food security for its people and is now being
named among food-
deficient countries.

Pakistan ranks at 61 out of 85 countries in the 2008 Global Hunger Index. The map of food security, prepared by Maplecroft, offers a quantification of the risk to a stable supply of basic food staples. Pakistan is in the “high risk” category of that map.

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