{"id":20046719,"date":"2020-12-11T14:00:02","date_gmt":"2020-12-11T08:30:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thethirdpole.net\/?p=46719"},"modified":"2021-02-15T19:31:54","modified_gmt":"2021-02-15T14:01:54","slug":"low-earnings-and-agricultural-neglect-push-pakistan-into-food-insecurity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/food\/low-earnings-and-agricultural-neglect-push-pakistan-into-food-insecurity\/","title":{"rendered":"Low earnings and agricultural neglect push Pakistan into food insecurity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Life was not as hard two years ago as it is today for Tariq Mahmood, a 39-year-old taxi driver in Islamabad, Pakistan\u2019s capital city. He works seven days a week for 12 hours a day but rarely has more than a few hundred rupees (a couple of US dollars) left after feeding his family.
\nMahmood said he has not felt this dejected by his dwindling finances in the past 14 years. For cab drivers like him the real culprit is not Covid-19, which shut down businesses, or the advent of ride-sharing services, which siphoned off customers, but spiralling food prices.
\n\u201cI cannot afford the education of my child after paying for food for the family,\u201d Mahmood told The Third Pole<\/a>.
\nHe lives in a joint family house in the outskirts of Islamabad, where the public school is currently closed due to Covid-19. He cannot afford any of the private schools that are offering online classes to their students.
\n\u201cAll my savings dried up during the lockdown and now I\u2019m trapped under a mountain of debt,\u201d he said.
\nThe rising cost of food<\/strong>
\nMore than half of Mahmood\u2019s daily income of PKR 1,500-2,000 (USD 9-12) is spent on food. Millions of Pakistanis are facing the same predicament.
\nFood price inflation in Pakistan has been in double digits since August 2019. The cost of food has been 10.4-19.5% higher than the previous year in urban areas and 12.6-23.8% in rural areas, figures published by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics<\/a> show. In November, urban food prices were up 13.0% on November 2019, and 16.1% in rural areas.
\nThese problems existed before the pandemic hit.
\n\u201cThe number of poor in the country will reach 75 million by the end of this year,\u201d Hafiz Pasha, an economist and former finance minister told The Third Pole<\/a>.
\nPasha said that the living standards of over 20 million people improved from 2013-18 and the number of people living below the poverty line fell to 55 million from 75 million. \u201cStability in food prices and increase in per capita income were the major factors behind the change,\u201d he said. The gains are now fading as tens of thousands of people lose their jobs.
\nData from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) slightly contradicts Pasha\u2019s claim, as it shows a decline in unemployment between 2017 and 2019, although it is now rising.
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