More Than Half of the Population of Pakistan Is Food...

HYPOTHESIS 1: More than half of the population of Pakistan is food insecured despite agricultural growth. The food security of a country is the availability of food in that country, and the people’s access to it. It is often said, â€Å"Food insecurity anywhere, threatens peace everywhere†. The term food security reflects the desire to eliminate hunger and malnutrition. The World Food Summit in 1996 defined food security as, â€Å"when all people at all times have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet the dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life†. This definition implies that food security has three pillars i.e., physical availability of food, socio-economic access to food and†¦show more content†¦A study conducted by the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE) puts the figure of those living below poverty line in rural areas at over 40 million. According to PIDE, in the surveys conducted in 2001, 2004 and in 2010, more than 50 per cent of rural households in Punjab and Sindh qualified as poverty-stricken for at least one period. Poverty in rural Punjab and Sindh declined sharply from 29.5 per cent in 2001 to 21.8 per cent in 2004 but then jumped to 28 per cent in 2010. The SDPI study reveals that the rural Balochistan has the highest incidence of poverty with three-quarters of its rural population (74 per cent) living below the poverty line. Urban poverty in Balochistan is 29 per cent. The second highest rural-urban disparity is found in Sindh where 46 per cent rural households are poor compared to only 20 per cent urban households. Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa also shows a similar pattern; 43 per cent rural households are poor compared to 18 per cent urban households. The rural-urban divide in Punjab is the lowest amongst all the provinces as 28 per cent rural households are poor in contrast to only 10 per cent urban households. Although agriculture is at the heart of the rural economy, the majority of Pakistan’s rural poor are neither tenant farmers nor farm owners. Farmers (including both owners and tenants) comprised only 43 percent of households .Non-farm