Nepal food situation worsens
KATHMANDU, OCT 19 -
Despite reduced food deprivation over a decade, Nepal has performed poorly to reduce hunger consistently in 2012.
The Global Hunger Index (GHI) report 2012, prepared by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), has placed Nepal in the 60th position in 2012 with a score of 20.3. Nepal’s position in the GHI is down from 54th in 2011.
The survey based among 79 countries shows that Nepal has moved to “alarming” situation from “serious” over a 12-month span in the GHI index.
The GHI stats as monitored by IFPRI show that in 1990, Nepal’s GHI score was 26.9, which fell to 24.4 in 1996, 23.0 in 2001 and 19.9 in 2011; but again rose to 20.3 in 2012. The GHI considers a score above 30 as extremely alarming, 20-29.9 alarming, 10-19.9 serious, 5-9.9 moderate and 4.9 low.
The report combines three hunger-related indicators — the proportion of undernourished in the population, the prevalence of underweight in children and the mortality rate of children.
The stats show 17 percent of the population to be undernourished, 38.8 percent of under-five children to be underweight and 5.0 percent of them dying before they reach five years of age.
The data for undernourishment is based from 2006-08, prevalence of underweight children is from 2005-10 and the under-five mortality rate is from 2010.
Among South Asian countries, Nepal has fared better than India and Bangladesh in the GHI. The report shows that Nepal hunger status has decreased by 25 percent in the last 12 years.
According to senior economist Bishwamber Pyakurel, Nepal does not have disaggregate data on food insecurity, underweight in children and poverty, but
a rough estimate shows that three out of five children in remote areas are underweight. Similarly, 3.7 million rural people are still food insecure.
Interestingly, Nepal’s poor performance on GHI comes a year after Nepal recorded bumper food production. Some government officials said that GHI had not taken account of the food situation from 2009 to 2011.
Bumper cereal harvests in the current fiscal year have put Nepal into a record food surplus position. The statistics of the Ministry of Agriculture Development (MoAD) show the country had food reserves of 886,307 tonnes in the fiscal year 2011-12.
The country witnessed a food surplus in the last fiscal year after two years of deficits. In the last one decade, Nepal had a food surplus position for six years and a deficit position for four years.
Pyakurel said that the Nepal government does not have any answers on how many people are food insecure and why.
“There is a need to take this issue seriously, and unless the government acts on increasing agriculture productivity and the income of poor households, it can invite a grave humanitarian crisis sooner or later.”
Particularly, food insecurity in the Far and Western regions is extremely alarming. “And unless these problems are addressed, any effort of the government to reduce poverty will not work.”
Experts said that 78 percent of household incomes are spent on food. And given the current fact of rising food prices, it will compel poor people to sell their assets for food, ultimately putting them under a huge debt burden, also known as a vicious cycle of deepening poverty.
Sarad Adhikari, faculty member of the Department of Conflict, Peace and Development Studies at Tribhuvan University, said Nepal’s poor performance in the GHI is due to three chains of events — growing rural to urban migration, increasing departures of migrant workers to foreign destinations and consumerism.
The first two events have resulted in low agriculture output as fewer people are available to work on the farms with most of the young people migrating to foreign countries to work. “That is why agricultural labour is not sufficient, and some of the farmland is going to lie fallow. The result is that agricultural
production is lower than before, and prices are rising,” Adhikari said.
As consumerism refers to the consumption of goods at a higher rate, it is directly related to affordability, availability and quality of foods among large sections of the population with low incomes, which is another indication of the status of food deprivation in the country.
The GHI report said that women’s low status in the South Asian region contributes to children’s poor nutritional outcomes. “Women’s poor nutritional status, low education and low social status undermine their ability to give birth to well-nourished babies and to adequately feed and care for their children,” the GHI report said.
Source: The Kathmandu Post
