Food is money

Pakistan is an agricultural country with many industries dependent on agriculture. But despite this, food inflation makes it difficult for the masses to afford a balanced diet. Food items available in the market are getting expensive by the day and consuming a major part of people’s income.

According to a report by the US Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service released last year, Pakistanis spend more of their income on food than any other of the 84 countries surveyed for the purpose. The report says an average Pakistani spends 47.7 per cent of their household budget on food consumed at home. An average American citizen, on the other hand, spends only 6.6 per cent of their household budget on food.

Controlling food prices has become a difficult task for the policymakers due to several reasons. For example, the demand and supply gap regarding food products, international food prices, increasing input costs and removal of subsidies, lack of research, low yields, climate change, etc, have a lot to do with the spiralling food prices.

Tanveer Arif, CEO of Society for Conservation and Protection of Environment (SCOPE), says high food prices are mostly the result of what goes on in the international market which works on speculation. "For example, the hike in fuel prices has led to inflation in food prices as agriculture is highly mechanised. Even when the prices come down, the impact does not reach the end consumer and the differential goes into the pockets of manipulators."

Arif says poor local market mechanism is based on the stronghold of middlemen and prices are manipulated by the powerful lobby of importers and exporters of food items, who turn government regulations in their favour. He lists poor production, absence of government support, high input prices, poor quality of fertilisers and pesticides, absence of cold storage facilities, farmers’ dependence on fuel-based power generation, and inflated transportation costs as some of the issues.

He says Western countries give heavy subsidies to food producers but in Pakistan they are left at the mercy of the market. The result is that the food products become expensive.

Khalid Mehmood Khokhar, a Multan-based farmer and President of Pakistan Kissan Ittehad (PKI), says the major cause of food inflation is faulty planning of the government regarding its policies. He says it is unfortunate that there are hardly any formal agricultural financing facilities for small farmers who have to ultimately go for informal financing offered by the middlemen (aarhtis).

"These middlemen charge high interests and provide faulty agricultural inputs, i.e., substandard seeds, fertilizer, pesticides as part of the loan agreement. As the growers cannot sell the produce to anybody else than the middlemen, the latter manipulate the market and set the prices in collusion with each other."

Khokhar tells TNS that high input costs have also led to inflation to a great extent. Giving an example, he says "a urea fertiliser bag costs Rs2020 in Pakistan but only Rs455 in India. Similarly, the cost of imported DAP fertiliser in Pakistan is Rs3800 whereas in India it is Rs1600. The same is the case with every other input," he adds. He points out that if the government "removes taxes on agricultural inputs, provides electricity at affordable rate, and introduces low-cost green diesel on the pattern of India, the prices will immediately come down."

Khokhar suggests the government must go for proper planning, climate change adaptation, and zoning to ensure high yields. It must allow sowing of crops that are suitable for specific geographical locations and the water resources available in these areas.

He says the government must intervene in the purchase of other crops to end the monopoly of hoarders and cites the example of India where the government announces support prices for 26 crops. "Whenever there is a second buyer, things improve both for producers and consumers."

Read also: Interview with Dr Abid Q. Suleri on food security in Pakistan

The entry of multinationals in food and milk business has also played its role and created food insecurity in different areas. According to a study on Thar by Dr K. Lohano, "The agro-pastoral lifestyle and livelihood options are changing gradually (but slowly) after the construction of metalled roads, increased electrification, and almost-universal coverage of mobile and wireless telephone networks in Tharparkar. Tharis now sell milk, something that was considered to be a taboo up to the late 1980s. People used to get milk free of cost from their neighbours, especially in the case of unexpected arrival of guests."

The study adds that now big corporations purchase fresh milk from Tharparkar and sell packed milk at village level. It can be said that the malnutrition has increased in women and children because everyone is selling milk which was otherwise part of their diet.

Dr Asif Sahi, a senior official at Punjab livestock department, says meat is fast becoming a dear commodity and getting out of reach of the masses. "It has important nutrients and must be a part of people’s diet but this is not the case." Sahi, who has also worked as Senior Manager, Meat Production, Pakistan Agriculture and Meat Company (PAMCO), says that one reason for shortage of meat supply is that hardly any efforts have been made in the past to develop cattle breeds for meat procurement purposes.

"What happens is that only the animals at the end of their lifespan are brought to slaughterhouses," he adds. He says there is an urgent need to develop special breeds with a high meat-to-bone ratio for meat production.

Another impediment in increasing yields is lack of research regarding seed development. Seeds are being imported from India and other countries and there are very few indigenous ones. Farmers lament that local research is limited but even then the government is bent upon destroying the existing agricultural research institutes.

One example, they say, is that of the National Agricultural Research Council (NARC) in Islamabad. They are raising voices against the Capital Development Authority (CDA) that intends to move it from here and build a housing colony on the highly valuable botanical gardens and lab area containing immovable precious plant species.

Many government policies on import and export of food items are also flawed and have resulted in food-related crisis in the past. On many occasions, food items were first exported and then imported at much higher prices. The inability of the government to check smuggling of live animals and wheat across the Pak-Afghan border also makes one think whether the government really wants to control the prices of these commodities.