FOOD SECURITY AND CLIMATE CHANGE

ABSTRACT:
Pakistan is vulnerable to climate change, and extreme climatic conditions are
threatening food security.
The food sector is one of the most important sectors of the economy,
encompassing agriculture, the food industry and eventually, all members of
society as consumers. Climate change will have far-reaching impacts on crop,
livestock and fisheries production.
Climate change causes new patterns of crops, cultivation and humans and
animal disease, and affectation new risks for food security, safety and human
health.
World Health Organization (WHO) defines food security as:
“When all people at all times have access
to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to
maintain a healthy and active life.”
Climate change has an indirect impact on nutrition insecurity and a more direct
impact on food availability and access depending on the type of livelihood
system people are relying on.
Food security is based on four key pillars:
Availability, Access; Utilization, Stability
Pakistan economy is based upon agriculture. At present agriculture of Pakistan
is facing very serious problems like irrigation water shortage and less rainfall
due to climate change. Certain crops are climate sensitive in Pakistan such as
rice, vegetables, cereals, spices and other grains. Rising temperature and
changing rainfall is resulted in the form of shortage of water, which further
leads towards the problems of food security due to low productivity especially
in cropped food sector. Food insecurity is crucial and greater hindrance to social
and economic development of the country and needs critical scientific inquiry,
and idea of viewing this issue in terms of climate change carries with it
multipronged strategy to address the issue seriously.
The solution to this problem is remote sensing that offers a low-cost way to
figure out ways to translate the knowledge into actual yields and crop statistics
on the ground. We can make algorithms for analyzing and comparing statistics
to improve food security. Robust algorithms are needed to actually translate the
vegetation indices that we see from satellite into actual yield estimates on the
ground. We can make use of Google Earth Engine that allow us to scale up the
different algorithms that we develop and we can make cloud free mosaics. If we
can really map yields well both through space and time, then firstly, we will
able to identify where we might have some low yielding regions where we need
to target interventions to improve food security. Secondly, if we can identify
what factors are associated with different yield trends through time like different
weather variables we can identify ways to actually target intervention on the
ground to improve food security. Today most of the work has relied primarily
on agricultural census statistics from government or different ministries. The
benefit of using remote sensing data is that typically census statistics are often
inaccurate if they are even available. Collecting data on the ground is very time
and cost intensive so by using satellites this is the way to actually map different
parameters at fairly low cost.
Pakistan is a agro based country and the problems related to this major
sector pose threats to the overall economy and the strategic situation. In long
term context, the present situation is alarming because of the lack of
interest of higher authorities towards this important sector.
Reference:
MENHAS, R., Shumaila, U.M.E.R. and SHABBIR, G., 2016. Climate Change and its
Impact on Food and Nutrition Security in Pakistan. Iranian journal of public health, 45(4),
pp.549-550.