Food security at risk as farm productivity lags behind population growth: Shahid Imran

LAHORE, Aug 16: Convener of the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) Regional Committee on Food Shahid Imran has expressed concern over growing food insecurity in Pakistan, saying that 46 percent of the population is reportedly facing hunger-like conditions as agricultural productivity has failed to keep pace with population growth and climate volatility.

Talking to a delegation of traders here on Sunday, he said smallholder farmers were particularly vulnerable because they had limited capacity to absorb sudden increases in fertiliser, fuel and transportation costs.

He said a poor harvest or sudden increase in input prices could quickly turn into a debt problem for farmers, while climate variability was further compounding their difficulties.

Shahid Imran said food inflation was not merely another component of the Consumer Price Index but had direct implications for poverty, nutrition and human capital.

Pakistan could not prevent regional conflicts or determine global energy prices, he said, but it could reduce the extent to which external energy shocks translated into domestic food crises.

He referred to the State Bank of Pakistan’s warning regarding food prices and urged policymakers to take timely measures before another external shock exposed the same structural weaknesses.

Shahid Imran said recent external shocks were highlighting vulnerabilities that had affected Pakistan’s agriculture sector for decades. The country’s irrigation system remained inefficient and insufficiently modernised, while water losses were substantial, storage capacity inadequate and crop patterns heavily concentrated on water-intensive staples.

He stressed the need to modernise Pakistan’s agriculture sector on scientific lines to address the challenges posed by rapid population growth.

The FPCCI official said the State Bank’s warning that domestic food prices could rise more than expected in the near term warranted urgent attention. He said food inflation was increasingly being driven by external factors, particularly energy, fertiliser and freight costs.

According to him, the ongoing war in the region and disruptions to gas supplies from the Gulf were pushing up global energy and fertiliser prices, directly increasing the cost of agricultural production and transportation.

He said the impact of global energy prices ultimately travelled through farm inputs to food markets, placing essential commodities beyond the purchasing capacity of many households.

Shahid Imran further said Pakistan was facing the twin pressure of higher energy and fertiliser costs and a widening food trade deficit resulting from weakening agricultural exports. This, he added, was reducing the foreign exchange earnings needed to finance an increasingly expensive food import bill.