Devastated by floods, Pakistan faces looming food crisis
Violent swells have swept away roads, homes, schools and hospitals across much of Pakistan. Millions of people have been driven from their homes, struggling through waist-deep, fetid water to reach islands of safety.
Nearly all of the country’s crops along with thousands of livestock and stores of wheat and fertilizer have been damaged; prompting warnings of a looming food crisis.
Since a deluge of monsoon rains lashed Pakistan last week, piling more water on top of more than two months of record flooding that has killed hundreds of people and displaced tens of millions, the Pakistani government and international relief organisations have scrambled to save people and vital infrastructure in what officials have called a climate disaster of epic proportions.
Floodwater now covers around one-third of the country, including its agricultural belt, with more rain predicted in the coming weeks. The damage from the flood will likely be “far greater” than initial estimates of around US$10 billion (S$14 billion), according to the country’s planning minister, Ahsan Iqbal.
The flooding has crippled a country that was already reeling from an economic crisis and double digit-inflation that has sent the price of basic goods soaring.
Now the flooding threatens to set Pakistan back years or even decades, officials warned, and to fan the flames of political tensions that have engulfed the country since Prime Minister Imran Khan was ousted this past spring.
The damage to the country’s agricultural sector could also be felt across the globe, experts warn.
Pakistan is one of the world’s top producers and exporters of cotton and rice; crops that have been devastated by the flood. As much as half of the country’s cotton crop has been destroyed, officials said, a blow to global cotton production in a year when cotton prices have soared as other major producers from the United States to China have been hit with extreme weather.
The floodwaters also threaten to derail Pakistan’s wheat planting season this fall, raising the possibility of continued food shortfalls and price spikes through next year.
It is an alarming prospect in a country that depends on its wheat production to feed itself at a time when global wheat supplies are precarious.
“We’re in a very dire situation,” said Rathi Palakrishnan, deputy country director of the World Food Programme in Pakistan. “There’s no buffer stocks of wheat. There’s no seeds because farmers have lost them.
“If the flood levels don’t recede before the planting season in October, we’re in big trouble,” she added.
Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s government, along with the United Nations (UN), has appealed for US$160 million in emergency funding to reach 5.2 million of the country’s most vulnerable people.
Around 33 million people have been displaced. Floodwater now covers around (260,000 sq km), an area larger than the size of Britain, with more floods expected in the coming weeks.
Officials have warned that the damage and economic losses will be felt throughout the country for months and years to come. The loss of cotton to Pakistan’s textile industry, which contributes nearly 10% of the country’s gross domestic product, could hamper any hopes for an economic recovery.
Aid officials have warned that even after the floods subside, rural communities face a possible second wave of deaths from food shortages and diseases transmitted by contaminated water and animals. And severe inflation and shortages of fresh produce will likely hit urban centers unaffected by the flooding.
To address the immediate needs of the millions affected by the flooding, aid groups and the Pakistani government have launched rescue efforts and mounted emergency aid distribution.
“The Pakistani people are facing a monsoon on steroids; the relentless impact of epochal levels of rain and flooding,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres said in a message launching an appeal for international assistance to Pakistan.
But the scale of the crisis has complicated relief efforts, Pakistani officials say. And as conditions worsen, anger has risen across Pakistan over the government’s response.