PAKISTAN is an arid and water-stressed country and, at the time of its birth, had hardly enough arable land and surface water resources to achieve food security. As a net importer of food, the spectre of famine hung over the country for almost a quarter century following independence. Cropping cycles were doubled only after tube wells were installed through multiple salinity control and reclamation programmes, the Mangla Dam and other associated water infrastructure were constructed, and a massive land-clearing and reclamation effort was undertaken. The area under cultivation saw an increase as did the yields through large-scale utilisation of modern inputs like urea fertiliser to lift the agrarian potential of the country and achieve food security by the early 1970s. That was no mean feat, and was quite possibly the single-largest accomplishment the young country had ever seen. The work put in during those days has stood the country in good stead every since, insulating us from commodity price shocks, and banishing the spectre of large-scale famine that would frequently afflict the region.

But all that is now changing, and faster than anyone can see. First we began to see widespread incidence of malnutrition, which had until now largely impacted the youngest children. Now the Food and Agriculture Organisation is telling us that the area under cultivation has stagnated at just around 25pc of the total land area of the country, and food output is not going to be able to keep pace with the rapid population increases we are registering. This means a return to the growing reliance on imports to meet domestic food needs, thereby rolling back the hard-fought gains of the quarter century following independence. Moreover, with dwindling water resources, further expansion is not possible. To top it off, as soil fertility is worsening, increasing yields is also becoming a growing challenge. This broad-based stagnation combined with growing pressure on land in peri-urban areas as agricultural land is cleared to meet the housing needs of expanding cities is aggravating the problem. The pressure to grow more nutritious food per unit of land is growing at an accelerating rate, putting unprecedented stress on future food security. Careful curation of our soil fertility, along with preservation and the ultimate expansion of our agricultural land, will require what the FAO calls a ‘comprehensive approach’. Given the urgency of the stakes involved, the time to start work on this is now.

Published in Dawn, December 9th, 2017