Food And Rights Talk is a series of interviews with PAN Asia Pacific (PANAP) partners across the globe to find out the situation of rural peoples, in relation to food security and human rights, amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
We talked with Nasira Habib, an educationist and development activist who is the Founder Director of Khoj Society for People’s Education in Lahore, Pakistan. She is also a member of the Steering Council of PANAP.
PAN Asia Pacific (PANAP): How are things in Pakistan in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic?
Nasira Habib: The problem was, our Prime Minister was not in favor of the lockdown. He was very firm that lockdown was not needed, and he always spoke about livelihoods. So it was strange that the Prime Minister said that there will not be any lockdown and the next day, on March 23, lockdown was imposed. COVID-19 entered Pakistan through pilgrims from Iran. A number of people who went to Iran to visit holy shrines were infected when they came back. Now the present situation is, as of July 21, there are 265,791 confirmed cases in Pakistan, and the reported deaths are 5,641. I think it’s because of the unclear, confused policy of the government. The government believed in herd immunity. And there is also this mindset that the day of your death is fixed so whatever you do, if you are destined to die, you cannot stop it. That is the prevalent mindset. And it translates to the kind of behaviour that people have.
PANAP: What is the state of your public health system, has it been able to cope with the COVID-19 cases?
Nasira: Our health system was totally exposed. The hospitals do not have adequate facilities for the infected patients. The most dreadful thing was that our health professionals—doctors, nurses and health workers—had to work in very unfavourable conditions. Doctors kept on demanding that the threat of COVID-19 was very serious and that the government should take it very seriously. Health professionals were not provided with proper protective equipment and that became a very big reason why a good number of them contracted the disease, and many of them have died. There are also not enough ventilators in the country, nor does the country have enough testing facilities to cope with the situation. The government tried to increase the testing capacity with the target of 50,000 tests a day—but that is still small given the population of Pakistan which is 220 million. The government also claims that the cases are going down, but many think that the reported decline in the cases is because of a decline in testing. There are 133 testing labs in the country but currently, only 40% of capacity is being used according to the Ministry of National Health Services Regulation and Coordination.
So this is roughly the situation. Hospitals are not equipped. Even if people are admitted to the hospital, there is no specific treatment protocol, so people believe they are better off at home. Additionally, if you are infected with COVID-19, it is seen as a big social stigma. That is another reason why people don’t go for tests and don’t report symptoms. There press also reports that there are instructions to hospitals that they should underreport cases. Additionally, because the government wants to open up everything, now there is no lockdown in place. Except for educational institutions, most working places and shops are now open. The government says that people should observe SOPs but when the Prime Minister says you should not worry, that only 2-3% of those infected get seriously ill, people get very confused. So not a very big portion of society is observing what needs to be done.
PANAP: Is COVID-19 healthcare and testing free?
Nasira: There are free COVID-19 tests as well as paid ones. People opt for private laboratories because their results are believed to be more reliable, but the testing fee in those places are very high, up to PKR 9,500, which is obviously not affordable for majority of the population. But the problem is, with the free tests, results are given at least after a week, which makes the testing pointless. In many cases, even after a week you are not able to get your results.
PANAP: What has been the impact of COVID-19 on farmers and rural communities?
Nasira: For the last two years, Pakistan economy has been performing very poorly and we have been in an economic crisis. Pakistan is also one of those top 10 countries most affected by climate change, and last year came the locust attacks, which kept ruining the crops until 2020, and which has devastated the rural economy. Amid these challenges came COVID-19. There is no data on the impact of COVID-19 on urban and rural areas, but the general impression is that urban areas are more affected by the virus itself. But the impact of lockdown on farming communities is quite obvious. April was the peak season of harvesting wheat in Pakistan. The provinces of Punjab and Sind grow most of the wheat in the country. Farmers have to hire machines, such as combined harvesters, and have to get their produce to the market. It became very challenging for them during that period to have access to machines. On top of that, farmers had to sell their produce at a lower price and obviously they were not getting the fruit of your labor. Farmers around the big cities who grow flowers and supply restaurants were also badly affected. As there was no demand for their flowers, they had to plough back their produce in the fields.
The livestock sector was also hit very badly. Because transportation was not available, the dairy plants were also not buying milk from farmers, and the farmers were forced to sell it at a very, very low price. Now we’re going to have Eid ul Azha, a religious festival where animals are sacrificed. The recommendation is that animals should not be sacrificed otherwise it will increase the risk of getting infected by the virus. The livestock people keep animals and rear them the whole year in the hope that on this Eid they will earn money because the animals get a good price at this occasion. As many people decided not to sacrifice animals this Eid, the demand will be less, which means their income will also be less. Also usually a month before Eid you can see livestock people bring their goats, cows, camels and sell them by the roadside. But now, nobody is allowed to sell animals on the road, which is a good move, but this decreases the opportunities to sell animals. Still, a big number of the population are driven by their religious sentiments and intend to sacrifice animals. So nobody knows what will be the impact of sacrificing of animals on the spread of coronavirus.
PANAP: How is the food security situation in Pakistan?
Nasira: The situation is strange. Pakistan grows surplus food—surplus wheat, surplus rice—and still 37% of the population or 87 million people live below the poverty line. And now, the Economic Survey of Pakistan just recently released gives a figure that 10 million more people will be added to those living below the poverty line due to the impacts of COVID-19. That’s a big number. Despite food surpluses, Pakistan experiences high levels of food insecurity. Funnily, rural people are more food insecure.
PANAP: Why are food producers more food insecure?
Nasira: Almost one-third of the rural population are landless. They are daily wage workers. Daily wages have increased but food prices have increased even more. Food price inflation has reduced the purchasing power of rural people. And women and children are particularly impacted because women don’t pay attention to their own food and nutrition. According to one report only 15% of women and children consume a minimally acceptable diet.
PANAP: So the pandemic worsened this food insecurity among food producers?
Nasira: It has rendered many people jobless. The arrangement usually is that in most of rural households, families partially work in the farm and live in the village, and then partially they migrate to the cities and work there. This is their strategy to survive. With COVID-19, that urban labor had to go back to the villages. It has created not only a social crisis but a very big economic challenge. The daily wage earners going from the villages to the towns were unable to go because all the work places were closed down. Although the lockdown has been lifted, things are still not back to what they used to be.
PANAP: Has the government provided relief measures for those affected?
Nasira: A month after the first COVID-19 case was confirmed they launched a poverty relief package with a value of PKR 1.25 trillion. But if you analyze this package, one can come to know that it’s basically the previous schemes that are repackaged. There is a Benazir Income Support Program (BISP) already in place, which started more than 10 years back. When COVID-19 came, they didn’t know how to reach the most affected people and what would be the criteria. So they identified the most vulnerable families through the BISP registry and district authorities, and just changed the name. So they repackaged the same fund and instead of paying PKR 4,000 per month they made a 3-month payment of PKR 12,000. So before the advent of COVID-19, the scheme was already there. And you can well imagine there is no consideration of agriculture and of farming families who are affected by COVID-19. So they are dispersing money to people using a decade-old criterion.
There are also some food subsidies, with a network of utility stores selling items that are subsidised by the government. The provincial governments also has this practice of purchasing 40% of the wheat produce of farmers in order to stabilize the prices. This was also made part of the COVID-19 package. These are actually old programs—the wheat procurement program I still remember from my childhood. It’s not very simple and easy, a lot of farmers are not able to sell to the government. It’s not a major scheme that’s focused on the impacts of COVID-19. There is PKR 70 billion allotted for other programs in relation to COVID-19, but there is no data on what is being done with that amount of money.
PANAP: You have been advocating for growing food agroecologically for some time now. Do you think that this movement is even more relevant now with this pandemic?
Nasira: COVID-19 has created a huge opportunity for agroecology, for organic agriculture, because COVID-19 is seen by a section of society as a result of going against nature, and that nature has backfired. So there is a surge in interest in the urban areas—people who don’t have land for agriculture but have houses with backyards—there is awareness among these people that something should be done to go back to growing safe food and natural practices. After working for more than 30 years with the urban and rural communities, I concluded that the economic argument works best with the farming communities. The argument of safety doesn’t work with them. But with the growing interest among the urban consumers in safe food, the potential of creating a movement is more if we take advantage of the situation of COVID-19. And we are already witnessing that. Farmers are becoming more interested in organic agriculture, though the number is still small. So I think that we should take advantage of the situation and use it as a strategy to build a strong movement which is focused on safety and security of food. Khoj has been already playing its role by way of training home gardeners and farmers in natural practices. Our first focus is to build a movement of natural urban gardening that can motivate farmers to convert to agroecology.
The other thing is, we don’t have organic seeds in Pakistan—everyone is focused on hybrid seeds. At Khoj we have already started working on organic seed saving that leads to seed sovereignty. If you want to be the master of your situation, you need your own seeds. In order to support this movement, I have been releasing videos regularly. You can call it regenerative agriculture, permaculture, or agroecology—basically you are trying to mimic natural patterns and how nature works. So COVID-19, in a way, has created a lot of opportunity for treading upon an alternative path of growing safe food that makes you food secure and sovereign. The lockdown with imposed limited movement has provided an opportunity that made people rethink their situation and change. They themselves came to the conclusion that they should do something to grow food that is safe, nutritious, and builds immunity. Different people have different reasons but the end result is, a lot of interest has been generated. So we want to capitalize on that.###
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