Food security is the biggest challenge for Pakistan: PM Imran Khan

Prime Minister Imran Khan said that food security has become a matter of national security for Pakistan.

The prime minister, in his address to the National Kissan Convention in Islamabad, said that in the coming years Pakistan’s “biggest challenge” will be that of food security.

To explain the exact nature of the problem, he explained to the spectators that Pakistan had to import 4 million tons of wheat last year alone to meet a shortfall.

“The expense for that was in foreign exchange, in a country that is already short of dollars,” stated PM Imran Khan.

He added that it was untenable for the country to keep on going like this.

“The rate at which our population is increasing [we need to ask] in the next 10, 15 years how will we create food for our population?” said the premier.

“If we want to save our nation from the challenges ahead [we need to see that] food security in reality [has become] national security,” said PM Imran Khan.

The PM said that Pakistan does not accept Israel due to the carnages it obligates against Palestine but recognized how it consumed technically progressive methods to even make barren land useful for agriculture.

“They scratched their heads and came up with a solution to turn even a desert into fertile land.”

Furthermore, to highlight the problem of food security in Pakistan, the prime minister said that the situation is so terrible that kids in the country are born underdeveloped.

“Close to 40% of babies in our country are stunted because their diet is not complete. This is a very dangerous figure,” said the PM.

The government is launching a nutrition program under the Ehsaas Programme, to tackle this problem.

The PM stated that if the children are persisted in underdevelopment then they will be “left behind in the race of life as their brain and body will not be developed”.

Whereas, PM Imran Khan said that the milk is not pure and children in the country are not getting proper milk as it is “contaminated”.

“[Just] think, our kids are not getting pure milk and that is their most basic need for growth,” said PM Imran Khan.

The prime minister said that the country’s agriculture sector faced the same issue when Pakistan was created.

He added that the farmers are not helped in Pakistan, most farmers are small landowners.

He shared that china was able to bring people out of poverty in 35 years, which was due to helping the farmers in the country.

“China also had small land hold owners and they helped the small farmers as there was poverty in the villages,” said PM Imran. He bewailed that Pakistan did not do the same thing 74 years ago.

“A nation that does not fulfill the diet of its people should be punished,” said the prime minister.

PM said that the steps being taken by the government today are taken with the opinion that Pakistan becomes a food exporter rather than food insecure.