Food insecurity in Pakistan
Challenges, consequences and solutions
By Sharjeel Khawar
FFSN, BZU MULTAN

Food insecurity, definition and types
• A lack of consistent access to enough food for every person in a
household to live an active, healthy life
• Low food security is when the food you eat is lower-quality
• Very low food security is when you can’t get food when you
need to

Minimum level of dietary
energy consumption
• Population below minimum level of dietary energy consumption
shows the percentage of the population whose food intake is
insufficient to meet dietary energy requirements continuously

Hunger and population stats
• The current population of Pakistan is 232,282,896 as of
Wednesday, March 1, 2023, based on Worldometer elaboration
of the latest United Nations data
• The IRC is warns that an estimated 14.6 million people are in
need of food assistance
• And 8.6 million people are experiencing an extreme level of
food insecurity

Cont…
• Pakistan hunger statistics for 2017 was 12.10%
• In the 2022 Global Hunger Index, Pakistan ranks 99th out of
the 121 countries with sufficient data to calculate 2022 GHI
scores. With a score of 26.1
• According to the 2019-2020 Pakistan Social and Living
Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM), 37.8 percent of
Pakistan’s population lives in multidimensional poverty

Regionwise household food insecurity in
Pakistan

Annual population hiking

Per capita requirement and total intake
• Wheat flour contributes 72% of calorific intake, with per capita
wheat consumption at around 124 kilograms per person each
year making 30000 (1000MT) total
• While total annual wheat production (excluding wastage) is
25000 (1000MT)
• per capita consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables in
Pakistan soared from 53.6 Kg to 68.3 Kg
• However, still less than half of the recommended 144 Kg

Increasing domestic wheat consumption

Total food production in recent years
• According to Pakistan - Food production index, Pakistan's
food production from 2013 to 2020, decreased by 4.93%
• Meanwhile, during this period, the population increased by 15%
from 194,454,498 to 227,196,741

Average annual production of food crops in
Pakistan
• 67.1 million tons of sugarcane
• 25.0 million tons of wheat
• 6.3 million tons of maize
• 4.6 million tonnes of potato
• 2.3 million tonnes of mango
• 1.6 million tons of orange
• 1,601 thousand tons of tomatoes
• 545 thousand tons of apple
• 540 thousand tons of watermelon
• 501 thousand tons of carrot
• 471 thousand tons of date

Average yields of food crops in pakistan

Self-sufficiency in Pakistan
• Pakistan is among the countries where near self-sufficiency
was achieved in wheat in the early eighties
• It also maintained its status as a leading rice-exporting country
• However not only it failed to become self sufficient but facing
challenge of annual decreased production also

Factors contributing towards a slower
growth of food production
• a continuously high rate of population growth
• a lack of technological advancement
• a changing pattern of income distribution
• and a greater level of urbanization
• sharp rise in the cost of irrigation
• decline in the prices
• a heavy debt burden
• Food wastage
• the lack of technology and human capital development
• and mismanagement in the distribution system have as compared
with the levels achieved in the sixties and the eighties

Consequences
• Hunger
• Protein energy malnutrition
• Mother and child health
• Poor immunity and chronic ailments
• Challenged social health
• Rise in Health-related Costs

Economic Solutions
•Microfinance
•Crops for Human Consumption (not animals)
•Grow Food Crops (not cash crops)

Management Solutions
•Crop substitution
•Raising Farm Productivity - education, female farmers,
fertilizers, technological advancement
•Expand commercialism

Political Solutions
•Food Aid
•Free Trade
•Fair Trade
•Land Reform
•Planning
•Peace
•Climate Change

Technological Solutions
•Irrigation
•Transport
•Mechanisation
•Infrastructure