IT has been a long time that Balochistan is suffering from the food insecurity problem. The Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) provided a data which estimates that 30 out of 32 districts of the province are food-insecure which has been an alarming issue. Shockingly, only two districts of Quetta and Jaffarabad have food security in the entire province. Most of the other districts have to rely on agriculture which is the only source for the food, but this sector is handicapped by the lack of water.

According to experts, over 80pc of agriculture in Balochistan depends on rain, but there has been little rain in the last few years. The rainwater is wasted because of bad management.

In Khuzdar district alone 350,000 cusecs of water are dumped through rivers into the Arabian Sea. In recent years, not a single large dam has been built in the province to save rainwater for agriculture. Hence the sharp fall in the water table.

The agriculture land depends on water from tube wells which require electricity. But the rural areas of the province just gets five to six hours of electricity a day. This cannot maintain the agriculture land. Hence the rising food insecurity. Thus drought has affected the people and their livestock. The 1997 and 2005 drought killed over 1.76 million cattle and an area of 0.798 million hectares was wasted causing a loss of Rs25bn. With the rise in the population the situation mat get worse.

Former Chief MInister Dr Abdul Malik had declared a Rs1bn relief package for drought victims. But since that not a single rupee has been spent on them.

Sana Samad
Turbat

Published in Dawn, December 3rd, 2017