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Over the years a number of studies have shown that hunger and malnutrition levels in the country continue to rise and are reaching alarming proportions. Last year, Unicef likened the levels of malnutrition in post-flood Sindh to Chad and Niger, while Oxfam International reported that about 26 per cent of Pakistan’s population was undernourished. A 2011 Oxfam survey also showed that nearly two-thirds of the population spends between 50 and 70 per cent of its income on food alone, with the majority of respondents saying they could no longer afford to consume the same food they did a couple of years ago.
We now have official recognition of hunger in the country. According to the Ministry of National Food Security and Research, about 50 per cent of the country’s population is food-insecure. A biannual report, Change in Cost of Food Basket (July-Dec 2011), released by the Planning Commission this week, says that the cost of the ‘minimum food basket’ has increased by a startling 79 per cent over four years. Such a basket — comprised of essential items including wheat, sugar, pulses, vegetable ghee and meat — cost Rs960 in 2007; in December 2011, it was priced at Rs1,790. The reasons are self-evident, including rising diesel prices, rupee devaluation, inflation and floods across agricultural heartlands.
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In the long term, Pakistan will have to revitalise its agricultural production sector, address menaces such as hoarding that causes artificial shortages and rationalise pricing mechanisms, to say nothing of rescuing its economy. Without such measures, hunger will continue to stalk the poor.