Poverty and food insecurity

Speaking at a pre-budget seminar, organised by Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE), the other day prominent economist, Dr Akmal Hussain, pointed to a little noticed but disturbing reality that 74 percent of our population is food insecure. Meanwhile, he observed, a deep recession is causing severe stress for the nation at a time we are fighting a battle of survival against militants.
Poverty and hunger, needless to say, go hand in hand, impeding both individual betterment and national progress. So far governments, both at the federal and provincial level, have tried to address the problem of hunger through steps that seem to be aimed more at winning popularity points - hoping they would translate into votes - than to address the basic issue of poverty which has made it more and more difficult for a vast majority of the population to make ends meet.
Indeed, food shortages and high prices are part of an increasing international phenomenon. However, what the people in this country are experiencing is not essentially analogous to other food scarce nations. Pakistan has fertile agricultural lands that can produce food crops and other eatables that are sufficient not only for domestic needs but surplus for export.
There is an obvious need to enhance per acre yield, which at present is dismally low as compared to many of the better-managed countries. A well thought-out and sustained policy aimed at educating the farmers in modern cultivation and irrigation techniques, ensuring provision of high yield seeds, timely availability of fertilisers, and introduction of crop insurance can go a long way in increasing productivity.
But first of all, there is need for a meaningful fresh land reform, and redistribution of assumed lands among peasants. Secondly, the government needs to introduce an agriculture support programme focused on helping small farmers. As it is, the major beneficiaries of the Agricultural Development Bank loans and other facilities happen to be influential landowners who, more often than not, take the money without intending to return it. Some declare wilful default, returning only a small fraction of the loan and keeping the rest. Sadly but unsurprisingly, the list of agricultural loan defaulters/wilful defaulters includes names of the high and mighty of this land.
A more productive use of the loan money would be poor farmers so they are able to buy inputs they can ill-afford otherwise, increasing personal incomes and agricultural productivity as well. The idea, it needs to be noted, has already been implemented, with great success during the first half of the last decade in Thailand, where low interest agricultural loans and infrastructure development made a major contribution to the country's recovery from the effects of the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis.