The Asian Development Bank´s new report on food price inflation in South Asia paints an alarming picture. ADB believes persistent inflation in price of staple food like rice and wheat could push tens of millions of people in the region into extreme poverty. Currently, over 30 percent of the region´s population (and a fully 40 percent of Nepal’s) live below the extreme poverty line of US 1.25 dollar a day. This is the reason half of under-five children in Nepal are stunted or chronically undernourished.
As food prices continue to soar, the poor in the region find themselves helpless against nature’s whims and severe restrictions on food import. It should be no consolation to Nepal that ADB’s report Food Price Escalation in South Asia–A Serious and Growing Concern believes food insecurity situation will be particularly bad for India, Bangladesh and Pakistan. There are grave risks for others in the region too. Countries like Nepal are likely to be hit hard in case of a poor monsoon, as happens every few years, and as India, the second biggest rice manufacturer in the world, imposes greater restrictions on rice exports given its own shortages.
As good harvests can no longer be guaranteed in any one of the SAARC countries, the need for a regional mechanism to deal with food price inflation and food insecurity is increasingly being felt. Not that there are none. The problem is they don’t seem to be working. For instance, the SAARC Food Bank (SFB) established in 2007 with the dual objective of acting as a regional food security reserve for SAARC countries and to support national food security efforts, is itself hobbled by shortages in member countries. If there is a severe drought or bad case of flooding somewhere in the region, it is doubtful SFB will, in its present state, be able to provide much help. Another big impediment to regional food security is believed to be ineffective implementation of the South Asia Free Trade Area (SAFTA). But, even if it is fully activated, reckons ADB, it will have very limited impact on food insecurity in the region as most of the restrictions on free movement of food products will continue to be in place.
That is not to undermine the importance of robust measures at the national level as well. Greater investment in agricultural technology to better cope with the vagaries of climate change and growing shortage of arable land are a must. So are better irrigation systems that minimize water waste. Improving market access for farmers could be another effective strategy. Of course, in the case of Nepal, much depends on how long it will take for the country to emerge from the protracted political instability. Unless things are sorted out on the political front, there is unlikely to be needed focus on the other no less important issue of food security. But what is also becoming amply clear is that any further delay in putting in place effective national and regional mechanisms will imperil the lives of hundreds of millions South Asians.
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