Hunger pangs

A recent report released by UN agencies and scores of other organisations working with them have stated that three million people around the world have faced a food crisis since October 2018, and 135 million are currently food insecure. The slightest change in the circumstances of those who are food insecure could push them towards crisis. The Covid-19 pandemic is precisely such an event. We have already seen the degree to which it is exacerbating hunger and poverty around the world, including in our own country as people are laid off from work due to industry closures and lockdowns. The wider question of course is why we have allowed for so long so many people to live in such precarious circumstances. There is more than enough food in the world. Currently, fields of grain in the US are razed to prevent an overabundance of the commodity while other items that exist in plentiful supply are simply dumped rather than redistributed. There has been no effort to balance the overabundance of food in some parts of the world and the severe shortage of it in others.

Currently, ten nations in the Middle East, South Asia and Southeast Asia contain 43 million people who are acutely food insecure. These nations include Pakistan. In many ways, this is shameful. Pakistan is a country, like others in South Asia, with abundant agricultural resources and acres of fertile land. Its inability to provide for its people lies with policies devised by successive governments rather than the kind of natural calamity that affects Sub-Saharan Africa and other parts of the world. In Pakistan, the provinces of Sindh and Balochistan record rural poverty of up to 50 percent. Studies in these provinces have shown that the majority of women of childbearing age and many children suffer severe deficiencies of vitamins and minerals, including iron. Multiple pregnancies and traditions which lead to girls and women receiving less food than boys and men contribute to this.

Even today, in the 21st century, we have failed to change these realities. The drought-like conditions experienced in Sindh and Balochistan over the past decade have aggravated food insecurity and made it harder for people to grow crops. This has added to the disaster already being faced. In areas like Tharpakar, the lack of water and long spells without rain makes agriculture impossible and deprives livestock of the plants they graze on, leading to the death of these animals which are vital to the survival of people. In our highly scientific and technological age, no one should be going hungry. The extent of global hunger is terrifying. It has been created partially as a result of politics and is worsened by conflict and other manmade crises. The world must work together to resolve the problem, understand that every human being, no matter where he or she lives is equally important, and find a way to ensure food is available for the entire population sustained by Earth.