ISLAMABAD, June 2: Experts have urged the government to incorporate people’s right to food in the constitution, saying that the unprecedented surge in food prices has made millions of people vulnerable.

At a week-long forum on food crisis on Monday organised by ActionAid Pakistan’s Sustainable Agriculture Action Group, a number of experts and representatives of several civil society organisations finalised policy proposals for the government, including a substantial government support for 72.1million Pakistanis or 44.4 per cent of the population.

A fact-finding committee, which surveyed 22 districts, suggested some urgent measures, including a ban on the export of rice, wheat and other food items till a reasonable level of strategic reserves was achieved.

The forum called for a substantial increase in food subsidies in the budget.

Last year, the government had allocated Rs1.8billion for food subsidy that comes to around Rs2 a month for each of the 71 million ‘chronically poor’.

Representatives of the ministry of food and agriculture, the Consumer Rights Commission of Pakistan, Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Sustainable Development Policy Institute and Potohar Organisation for Development participated in the forum.

They stressed the need for land reforms, and said it would provide a cushion to some of the country’s over 100 million people (about 67 per cent of the population) who lived in rural areas and depended on agriculture.

Criticising the government for its inability to provide soft-term loans to farmers, they said most farmers were unable to afford agricultural inputs like fertiliser and seed and needed direct government intervention.

Fikre Zwedie, country director of ActionAid, HRCP Director I.A. Rehman, Ministry of Food’s Agriculture Development Commissioner Dr Qadir Bakhsh Baloch and former food secretary Dr Zafar Alaf addressed the concluding session.

They urged the government to revamp agricultural research centres to save people from being exploited by multinational corporations.

They said that Pakistan’s fertiliser sector, with the monopoly of the military-run businesses, received heavy subsidies in oil and gas but continued to fleece farmers, affecting the agricultural production.

They called for progressive taxation, and said that the government needed to lessen its reliance on indirect taxes which put excessive burden on the poor.

They said the government should work for wealth creation and income growth, instead of making the poor subsidise the rich under its regressive tax regime.

The forum also called for expanding the network of Utility Stores and fair price shops to suburban and rural areas.

It also called for introducing a new social safety net at a cost of Rs1.4billion for 10 million extremely poor people.