As the New Year – 2023 – is drawing nearer, efforts are apace in Pakistan as elsewhere in the world to tackle formidable challenges on multiple fronts, like weather changes and war, which adversely affect agricultural yield, pushing prices of staple food commodities to rare highs in the outgoing year.
As the world is closely knit and has taken on the shape of literal global village, the impacts of natural and man-made disasters are felt across the world. And, this is clearly evident from the Russian invasion of Ukraine. As such, natural disasters precipitated by climate change bring similar impacts for the world community.
This year’s monsoon flooding in Pakistan, which inundated almost one third of the country and brought untold miseries to millions of people, reinforcing fears of hunger and malnutrition in the face of a likely shortage of staples, such as wheat and rice, as standing crops and farmlands were massively damaged.
The ten-month-long Russian war with Ukraine also tipped the food security scenario, as sea transportation of food grains from the two countries was disrupted for most part of the current year, leading to tightening supplies and jacking up food prices in almost all countries of the world.
According to a report published on these pages, the International Water Management Institute in collaboration with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) organized a seminar in Peshawar last week to highlight the effects of environmental changes on agricultural lands and find methods to increase agricultural yield in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Experts on climate change and its impacts on the agriculture sector reviewed the causes and effects of the recent flood disaster and shed light over the possible solution to cope with environmental changes and enhance productivity of the agrarian lands in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
As Pakistan’s natural disaster has left the vulnerable households at risk of hunger, the world community is also gripped by economic concerns arising from the recession and the war between Russia and Ukraine.
As put by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief, Kristalina Georgieva, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has created serious economic and social consequences around the globe. As the war rages by the hour, she did not mince her words that many countries are now facing dangerous shortages of food, energy and fertilizers.
Following the publication of the “Joint International Financial Institution (IFI) Plan to Address Food Insecurity” earlier this year, she said: “If we have learned one lesson from the 2007-08 food crisis, it is that the international community needs to take fast and well-coordinated actions to effectively tackle a food crisis, by maintaining open trade, supporting vulnerable households, ensuring sufficient agricultural supply, and addressing financing pressures.
Notwithstanding the prolonged drought or excessive rain, researchers view that better management and utilization of farmlands and water available for irrigation purposes can enhance crop production, which are likely to replenish the drained inventories in 2023.
Only better management of water resources and farmlands for agricultural purposes can avert the scary food inflation and keep prices of food supplies in the range of the common people.
