One-third of households very seldom consume staple food, vegetables, or protein-rich diet
JAVED KHAN
PESHAWAR
Around 35 percent households in the newly merged areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are faced with food insecurity, said a survey conducted by the World Food Program.
The Comprehensive Food Security & Livelihood Assessment (CFSLA) report 2019-20 by World Food Program (WFP) revealed that around 31% households are food insecure, four percent are severely food insecure, 60 percent are marginally and only five percent households are food secure in newly merged areas of the province.
The merged areas of KP are the most rural administrative areas in Pakistan and are home to a population of over 5 million. The seven districts, six tribal sub-divisions merged with KP in 2018 they were previously known as FATA.
CFSLA report has jointly been prepared by WFP, Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) and the government of KP.
According to CFSLA 2019-20 one third of the households in the areas have access to a staple food and vegetables or very seldom they consume protein-rich food such as meat and dairy.
In order to establish the prevalence of food insecurity in seven merged districts and six tribal sub-divisions, WFP applied Consolidated Approach to Reporting on Indicators of food security (CARI) and Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) approaches.
The first one use for food consumption and coping capacity and the other, also used by Sustainable Development Goal (SDG indicator 2.1.2), has been used to assess prevalence of moderate to severe and severe food insecurity.
According to the survey report, about 82.80 percent of the households are in ‘No Hunger’ about 8 percent are in ‘Slight Hunger’ while 9 percent and 1 percent in ‘Moderate hunger’ and ‘severe hunger respectively.
To meet the food shortfall, around 22 percent of the households are resorting to “crisis coping strategies” or “emergency coping strategies” mean that they either sell their productive assets or land to avoid food insecurity in present but affect productivity which is difficult to regain in the future said WFP report.
The coordination committee for the survey consists of 14 members interviewed around 3,630 households and conducted 363 Focus Group Discussion (FGD) with the community in the merged areas for compiling the report.
In addition, ‘A Rapid Market Appraisal’ of all the local markets from Bajaur, Khyber, Kurram, Mohmand, North Waziristan, Orakzai, and South Waziristan districts and tribal subdivisions (formerly known as Frontier Regions of Bannu, Dera Ismail Khan, Kohat, Lakki Marwat, Peshawar, and Tank was carried also carried out for the assessment.
The food consumption of the household is also not very diverse as more than two thirds of the households are having ‘low’ or ‘medium ’ dietary diversity score.
CFSLA 2019-20 report said that 65 households of the merged areas mainly dependant on casual labour including agriculture and non-agriculture.
“Around 47 percent of the households have contracted some form of loan in the past 6 months, mainly for ‘food needs’ ‘Health, medical’ expenses,” said the report.
The survey shows agricultural activities in the merged areas are somehow limited except Bajaur and few areas in the rest of the merged areas of KP.
While some households hold agricultural lands, overall, about 46 percent of the households reported having ‘no agriculture land’ and about 59 percent of households reported that they were not cultivating land, said the survey findings.
It further depicts that about 43 percent of the households have owned up to two acres of agricultural land, while 11 percent own more than two acres of land. Of the total population who cultivate the land, about 88 percent cultivate their own land.
The recommendations of the CFSLA 2019-20 report share that despite adequate food availability at the national and provincial level, high levels of household food insecurity in the merged areas is attributed to limited or poor economic access to food.
Therefore, conditional food assistance, through either food or cash for asset creation activities could be an important means to enhance food security, restore or create stable assets and support the resilience building for the household and community.
The promotion of agriculture, crops, domestic poultry, livestock, and investment in the local market can significantly enhance the food security and nutrition of the rural households, particularly smallholders of the merged areas, added in the recommendations.
It is worth mentioning here that despite merged with KP, the tribal belt still retains the dubious distinction of being the region in Pakistan with the largest population of food insecure people.
