Free Essay

More Than Half of the Population of Pakistan Is Food Insecured Despite Agricultural Growth.

In:

Submitted By humairaasad
Words 742
Pages 3
HYPOTHESIS 1:
More than half of the population of Pakistan is food insecured despite agricultural growth. The food security of a country is the availability of food in that country, and the people’s access to it. It is often said, “Food insecurity anywhere, threatens peace everywhere”.
The term food security reflects the desire to eliminate hunger and malnutrition. The World Food Summit in 1996 defined food security as, “when all people at all times have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet the dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life”. This definition implies that food security has three pillars i.e., physical availability of food, socio-economic access to food and food absorption.
Pakistan is the sixth most populous country in the world, with a population now exceeding 170 million people. We are the 36th largest country of the world area wise. However, according to a Food Security Risk Index ranking of 148 nations, Pakistan, ranked 11th on the index, is at “extreme risk”
During 2011-12, the overall performance of agriculture sector exhibited a growth of 3.1 percent but The conditions for food security are inadequate in 61 percent districts (80 out of 131districts1) of Pakistan.According to the National Nutrition Survey 2011 Almost half of the population of Pakistan (58% percent) doesn’t have access to sufficient food for active and healthy life at all times.
FATA has the highest percentage of food insecure population (67.7 percent) followed by Balochistan (61.2 percent), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) (56.2 percent). The lowest percentage of food insecure population (23.6 percent) is in Islamabad. Among the districts, DeraBugti in Balochistan has the highest percentage of food insecure people (82.4%). Balochistan has the higher number of districts with worst conditions for food security. The 20 districts of Pakistan with worst conditions for food security include 10 districts from Balochistan, 5 from FATA; 3 from KPK, and 1 from GilgitBaltistan (GB) and Sindh each.

Hypothesis 2: Rural people of pakistan are more food insecured and the major reason is the unequal land distribution.
A study conducted by the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE) puts the figure of those living below poverty line in rural areas at over 40 million.
According to PIDE, in the surveys conducted in 2001, 2004 and in 2010, more than 50 per cent of rural households in Punjab and Sindh qualified as poverty-stricken for at least one period.
Poverty in rural Punjab and Sindh declined sharply from 29.5 per cent in 2001 to 21.8 per cent in 2004 but then jumped to 28 per cent in 2010.
The SDPI study reveals that the rural Balochistan has the highest incidence of poverty with three-quarters of its rural population (74 per cent) living below the poverty line. Urban poverty in Balochistan is 29 per cent. The second highest rural-urban disparity is found in Sindh where 46 per cent rural households are poor compared to only 20 per cent urban households.
Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa also shows a similar pattern; 43 per cent rural households are poor compared to 18 per cent urban households. The rural-urban divide in Punjab is the lowest amongst all the provinces as 28 per cent rural households are poor in contrast to only 10 per cent urban households.
Although agriculture is at the heart of the rural economy, the majority of Pakistan’s rural poor are neither tenant farmers nor farm owners. Farmers (including both owners and tenants) comprised only 43 percent of households .Non-farm households accounted for slightly more than half (52 percent) of the households. Overall, agriculture (including both crop and livestock production) accounts for only about 40 percent of rural household incomes.

unequal landownership in Pakistan is one of the important causes of poverty since land is the principal asset in an agrarian economy. The landless households are substantially high in Pakistan. About 67 percent households own no land . In contrast, about 18.25 percent household own under 5 acres of land and 9.66 percent household own 5 to 12.5 acres of land, which merely provide subsistence level of living standards. A very small proportion of households hold large farm sizes in the country. Strikingly, barely 1 percent (0.64 percent plus 0.37 percent) households owngreater than 35 acres of land. Thus, highly unequal land distribution is the main manifestations of poverty in rural Pakistan.

Similar Documents

Premium Essay

Ra.Doc

...Retirement and Pension System in Bangladesh M Alimullah Miyan Doctor Vice-Chancellor & Founder IUBAT — International University of Business Agriculture and Technology Dhaka, Bangladesh E-mail: miyan@iubat.edu Abstract The retirement issue mostly relates to those who are in job situation and the retirement age in public service is 57 years. The agriculture sector has no retirement concept as also the case in self-employment. The aspects of retirement in terms of age, old age welfare and social impact have been discussed in this paper. Pension system in Bangladesh is mainly observed in government services. The pension issues are settled according to the rules of the Public Servants (Retirement) Act of 1974. There are four categories of pensions which have been elaborated and analyzed in the paper. There are about 36 million labors working in agriculture sector in the country, who are not covered by pensions. Similarly migrant workers do not receive any pension. There is no provision of pension for private sector workers. They only receive some gratuity at retirement. Government has recently introduced Old Age Allowance Programme which covers small fraction of elderly people in the country who are not covered by pension system. Although limited in coverage, this is a healthy beginning of providing security to vast majority of the elderly people who are not covered by the existing pension system. Family support is the...

Words: 8818 - Pages: 36

Premium Essay

Women Entrepreneurs in Smes Bangladesh Perspective

...Women Entrepreneurs in SMEs: Bangladesh Perspective Sponsored by: SME Foundation Conducted by: MIDAS November 2009 Table of Contents Acronyms List of Tables and Figures Executive Summary Chapter 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Chapter 2.0 2.1 2.1.1 2.1.2 2.1.3 2.1.4 2.1.5 2.1.6 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.5.1 2.5.2 2.6 3.0 4.0 4..1 4..2 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.4.1 6.5 6.6 6.7 6.7.1 6.7.2 7.0 7.1 Introduction Statement of the problem Significance of the study Objective of the study Theoretical perspective of the study Scope of the study Limitations of the study Study Methodology Primary Research Location of the survey Sample Size Support Service Providers Methods of Data Collection Techniques of Data Collection Techniques of Data Analysis Secondary Research Focus Group Discussion (FGD) Key Informant Meeting (KIM) and Preparation of Case Studies Planning Workshops (PW) Planning Workshop Dialogues in the 6 Divisional HQs Discussions at Planning Workshops National Dissemination Seminar (NDS) Literature Review Entrepreneurship Concept of Entrepreneurship: A theoretical discussion Entrepreneurship in Bangladesh Women Entrepreneurship in Bangladesh History of Women Entrepreneurship Development in Bangladesh Women Entrepreneurs of Bangladesh Women Entrepreneurship in Urban Areas Women Entrepreneurship in Rural Areas Small & Medium Enterprises (SMEs) Definition of SME Theories of SME SMEs in Bangladesh Promotion of SMEs for Sustainable Development Access to Finance...

Words: 136702 - Pages: 547