Sartaj Aziz for inclusion of food security in the constitution

Former Finance Minister, Sartaj Aziz has said that food security should be accepted as a fundamental right in the constitution just like education is accepted as a basic right of every citizen in the 18th constitutional amendment.
He was addressing the conference on food security in Pakistan and the launch of report on human development in South Asia 2010/2011: Food Security in South Asia published by Mahboob-ul-Haq Human Development Centre (MHHDC), here at Lahore University of Management Sciences (Lums) on Saturday. Aziz said that micro-finance plays an important role in poverty reduction. He also said that efforts should be made in the country to increase the base of micro-finance creditors. He said that the floods of last year and recent rains in the country have damaged the crops spreading over a large area of land.
Dean School of Social Sciences Beacon House National University, Dr Hafiz Pasha said that Pakistan is among those countries that have high inflation rate. He said that per capita use of food items including wheat, rice and pulses has decreased significantly. He also said that food consumption of flour decreased by 15 percent, rice 25 percent and meat by 50 percent. He stressed the need of adopting a long-term solution of energy crisis. He said that hunger should be 'taken as a security threat'. Vice-Chancellor Lums, Dr Adil Najam said that climate change is the biggest problem faced by the South Asian countries and these countries should work for the solution of the problem of climate change.
Professor of Economics at Lums, Dr Abid. A. Burki said that we are short of private storage capacity of food and government should give incentives to private sector for developing food storage. He also said that if the private sector has the permission to collect milk from the farmers, there should be a permission to buy rice from the farmers and similarly, government should allow the private sector to buy wheat. Furthermore, there should be no role of politics in the functioning of markets, he added.