Rural households in Pakistan, along with their other Asian counterparts, have gained considerably from surging food commodity prices in the last few years, according to the latest Rural Poverty report released by the UNs arm International Fund for Agricultural Development.
But with growing rural population in the country - a significant bulk of which is still living below the international and national poverty lines - the rise in commodity prices is further squeezing their disposable incomes.
"It is perfectly clear that poorer population subgroups spend a larger share of their total expenditures on food than richer ones," according to the Economic Survey, Pakistan, FY10.
This means that concerns over high prices are mounting because inflation eats into real incomes and expenditures and can undermine the gains from poverty reduction and human development that developing counties like Pakistan have achieved over the last decade or so.
The progress in human development and poverty reduction in Pakistan is far from satisfactory at the moment; the IFADs report classifies Pakistan as a country where there is "high level of hunger and slow progress in improving it." And the numbers pertaining to poverty incidence in Pakistan support this.
According to the last available World Development Indicators, 22.6 percent of Pakistans total population lives under $1.25/day, whereas some 60 percent of the population lives under $2/day. In another revelation, the IFAD reports that about 23 percent of Pakistans population are under-nourished with unmet energy needs.
Anecdotal evidence from the rural strata of Pakistans society is also heart wrenching. For example, for lack of infrastructure such as warehousing, small farmers are often left with no option but to sell their crop futures at lower-than-market price levels.
At the same time, due to the absence of government support for medical treatment, the poor from the rural often have to sell their source of livelihood, such as cattle, to pay for the treatment, leaving many at the helms of creditors who then force the debtors into slave labour.
Likewise, small and unpredictable profits mean that rural folks are barely able to pay for the childrens education, whereas others complain of inadequate schooling. "There should be agriculture-related subjects [in the school curriculum] so that we get more information on agriculture, its cultivation methods. Which crop is grown in which season? How to use pesticides," one farmer pointed out.
In short, the IFAD report trumps home the long held view that Pakistans private sector, - including banks and non-financial corporations -, the NGOs and the government must join hands to uproot poverty from the country. Failure to do so will make poverty Pakistans most dreadful nemesis.