Just for a short while forget it and try to focus on the number of people around the country already pushed into deeper poverty and hunger because of the runaway food prices. We don’t have the numbers of those hugely affected by the spiking food price inflation, which is currently running at around 16 per cent.
“We shall not have these figures for several years until those at the helm of affairs find it politically convenient and gainful to release them to show reduction or increase in the incidence of poverty to obtain foreign assistance,” an economist who teaches at a private university tells Dawn.
We may not have the exact figures of people affected by the rising food prices, but we definitely know that many around us have already cut on their daily intake of food because they just cannot afford to spend more money on it due to their stagnant incomes.
“On the one hand the prices of essential food items -- ghee, wheat flour, rice, vegetables, pulses, meat etc -- have almost doubled over the last one year forcing people to eat less. And on the other hand soaring global crude markets and their impact on domestic oil prices are crushing the common man and squeezing his purchase power,” the economist says.
“The country’s economy will withstand the current global commodity price pressures and continue to grow -- at a slower pace than in the recent years though. But most of us belonging to lower- to middle-income segments of population are already facing a severe food recession,” he argues.
The domestic food markets are calm and stable -- for the time being though -- after a long and turbulent winter and spring that saw long queues of consumers to get a few kilograms of flour.
“At the moment there is no food shortage in the country. If the government successfully manages to procure seven million tons of wheat for the urban population and put effective checks on hoarding and smuggling, we shall not see any food shortage this year,” Ibrahim Mughal, chairman of the AgriForum Pakistan, tells Dawn.
He says the government might have to import two to three million tons of wheat this year to meet domestic requirements, depending upon the size of crop.
The present silence in the domestic food market is attributed to narrowing of global and domestic prices of wheat, which forms over 70 per cent of our grain intake.
“If we want to fend off repetition of last winter’s food crisis, we shall have to give our farmers international price for their produce. If we don’t do that we shall be creating an incentive for the smugglers and hoarders to create artificial shortages to rig profits,” maintains Salman Shah, former adviser on economic and financial affairs to the prime minister, while speaking to Dawn.
Mughal too agrees. But he says the farmers should also be given bank credit at lower rate. Besides, he says, the government should give a lot of attention to improve agriculture research to develop high yielding seeds to improve per acre farm output. “The average crop output in Pakistan is half the international yield. Even within the country progressive farmers are producing 20 to 25 per cent more production than smaller farmers, who till 93 per cent of 5.5 million acres of agriculture land of the country,” says Mughal.
“The elimination of huge price and other indirect subsidies like the one on oil and electricity would release good amount of money to the government for helping the urban poor through direct, smart subsidies,” he says.