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Moderated e-mail conference on small farms and food security

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Mon, 10 Oct 2016 14:56:18 +0000
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Hello everyone, nice to share my experiences. I am Arbab Ghulam Qadir, an Agri. Economist (M.Sc.) and a community development professional with variety of over 16 years working experience. Currently, I am working with Management & Development Centre as Senior Monitoring & Evaluation Coordinator and am mainly responsible for conducting agriculture/livelihood based baseline surveys & end project evaluations. I am also doing my Ph.D in economics with a research focus on livelihood opportunities and issues of elderly people in Pakistan.

Based on my working experience in rural areas of Sindh, Province of Pakistan, I am of the opinion that the major reason for food insecurity among small farmers is economic access to food. In other words, poverty and awareness on nutrition needs are two main reasons behind the food insecurity among the rural community. More than 70% of the population in Pakistan resides in rural areas and they are directly or indirectly dependent on agriculture. Food intake habits depend mainly on their purchasing power. Therefore, since centuries, the small farmers are hand to mouth which leads them to survive on basic food items with vegetables and pulses. Eating meat or fish is considered to be a big luxury among those households. The majority of small farmers cannot even think to eat fruits because they cannot afford it. 

Some of those small land holders who manage to save and reinvest in agriculture or livestock become comparatively larger farm holders. But still they continue same dietary pattern (food intake) due to their tendency to save more and less importance given to nutritious food. This shows their level of unawareness about nutrition needs and preference to balanced diet and saving. For example, I have seen families living in desert areas of Sindh province with small holding of two or three cows and eating simple food for living. And surprisingly the same eating patterns, I have observed among the family members of a household with more than 500 cows and other livestock animal holding. 

Therefore, in my opinion, in addition to other efforts to eradicate food insecurity, the major focus should be to explore the dietary pattern among small land holders and dig out reasons behind those patterns so that solutions can be worked out to bring a change by creating awareness of the benefits of balanced diet in the long run.

Arbab Ghulam Qadir 
Senior Monitoring & Evaluation Coordinator
Management & Development Centre (Development Consultancy Firm),
Hyderabad, Sindh, 
Pakistan
Cell: 0092-302-5237326
Off: 0092-22--2653068
Email: gqarbab (at) gmail.com
Web: www.mdcpk.org 

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