Is Pakistan wheat-insecure?

Consider following three facts. First, as per annual crop statistics, Pakistan is among world’s top 25 regions with annual per capita wheat availability at 122kg, equivalent to 885kcalories per capita per day. Second, wheat and its products contribute up to 37 percent of Pakistani’s total annual caloric supply as per a UN-FAO report from 2013. Third, according to Global Dietary Database (GDD) of Tufts University, daily whole grain- and fibre-based food intake in Pakistan stands at just 29.1 grams, equivalent to no more than 77kcal.

Is the profound gap between availability and consumption a result of faulty data? Afterall, share of wheat products appears largely in line with guidelines for minimum dairy energy requirements of 1,900kcal, set under Millennium Development Goal’s Hunger Target. Moreover, as a developing nation, it appears intuitive that Pakistan fulfils a large share of its food energy needs from home-grown grains and cereals.

Yet, not only does the Tufts University database indicates that Pakistan is seriously deficient in nutrient intake from grains and cereals, the claim receives support from various estimates of malnourishment by both local and global agencies. The 2015 World Food Summit for example notes that not only is prevalence of malnourishment still moderately high in Pakistan at about 20 percent of population, the country also missed the MDG target, with “lack of progress or deterioration”.

Before attempting to answer this gap, consider also that dietary recommendations set by US Food & Drug Administration department places maximum caloric intake from whole grains and cereal based food at between 200-280 gram, depending upon age group, gender, and physical activity. That translates in a range of 530-742kcal, well below various estimates of caloric supply from wheat-based products alone.

Part of the answer, of course, is the lack of affordability of nutrients from other food groups, such as dairy, poultry, meat, fruits, nuts and oils. This is in line with high levels of poverty, which makes these pricier energy-dense protein and fat sources out of reach of low-income segments. That would also explain high incidence of malnourishment, assuming it stems largely from scarcity of these energy rich food groups.

But what of the Tufts University claim that the country is equally (if not more) deficient in grain-based calories? A look at FAO’s Food Security Indicators answers this mystery. Outside of eight African countries and war-ravaged Iraq, and Sri Lanka, Pakistan has the world’s highest coefficient of variation (CV) in per capita caloric intake. Meaning that while per capita caloric supply, estimated at 2,440kcal as of 2014, may be sufficient to meet minimum daily caloric requirements of its population, the country has extremely high levels of inequality in caloric intake across population. As per last availability, Pakistan’s coefficient is 0.31x, compared to Afghanistan 025x.

Thus, the difference between caloric intake and supply from cereals and grains may partly be a result of inequality in food availability. Afterall, food supply estimates from both UN-FAO and Oxford University caution that food supply figures do not account for food wasted or not eaten at the consumption level.

Pakistan’s food insecurity problem, at least at current output levels, is more a result of inequality than insufficiency. Afterall, while most public policy specialists in this area are familiar with statistics of annual wheat productivity, output, and acreage, little to no data is available on Pakistan’s annual flour or wheat-based products. An indication that while Pakistan may be producing wheat in abundance; no reliable estimates exist on its processing, which in turn makes it impossible to know whether the problem is of insufficiency, storage, inequality of distribution, or simply hoarding.