ABSTRACT

Food poverty or food insecurity is very crucial issue hurting millions of people. it is important to critically examine it. In this regard an attempt is made to assess the food poverty by conducting three essays with reference to Pakistan. In first essay the study made an effort to investigate the key determinants that influence various levels of food poverty. Various states of household food poverty are calculated by integrating the two measures of food security, per capita food expenditures (FOOD EXP) and average dietary energy consumption (ADEC), which represent food affordability or availability and accessibility respectively. The combined two indicators can be further categorized into four possible states of food poverty, including total food insecurity (on the base of both indicators), food insecurity on the base of only food expenditure, food insecurity on the base of only ADEC, and food insecurity based on ADEC and food expenditure both. Multinomial logit model is applied to conduct the empirical investigation using HIES data for 2018–19. Empirical findings are likely to verify the presence of various states of food poverty/food insecurity issues that need to address properly. The empirics also show how the impacts of household socioeconomic characteristics vary considerably among the various food poverty states defined for the investigation. It is concluded in order to ensure human wellbeing and to plan food security strategies to address this hot issue, it is crucial to understand the causes of household food poverty states.

The second essay investigates the role of spatial variation on food poverty states. The role of spatial dependence or spatial heterogeneity is very important and cause biasedness if existed but neglected. Many studies are conducted regarding the incidence of food poverty and food security with reference to Pakistan but none could be find addressing the spatial non-stationarity, which states that a simple global model cannot describe how certain sets of variables are connected. The study used join count statistics and a spatial binary autoregressive probit model, which shows changes in the relative weight of numerous factors that affect poverty based on location. The join count statistics confirms the spatial clustering of the food secure districts than the spatial randomization distribution. It verifies spatial autocorrelation between the food insecure regions. The spatial autoregressive binary probit model also confirms the spatial non-stationarity between food insecure districts. The empirical results found that cultivated area for crop has negative and significantly impact the food insecurity. The livestock has negative but insignificant impact. Roads are main infrastructure and results also verify and indicating negative and significant effect on food insecurity. Average rainfall has negative and significant impact on food insecurity. It is concluded that food poverty is not randomly distributed in case of Pakistan and it demonstrate high degree of spatial clustering.

In third essay the study has attempted to assess the role of cash transfer in food insecurity. Cash transfers e.g BISP have the potential to support each of the four pillars of a sustainable food system by raising household income.  Household income can boost the ‘availability of food” as it can also boost local demand for goods, causing a supply response in the market. Such arrangements can also result in improving agricultural productivity and production by removing financial barriers for farmers and making it easier for them to buy seeds, fertilizer, and other inputs for their fields. The results indicated that increase the amount of cash transfer has likelihood to decrease the food insecurity. Hence, the study finds the conditional transfer program effective in reducing the food insecurity.

Taking into account the aforementioned situation, in four essay we tried to structure an understanding of the diverse policies and research initiatives carried out by specialists and interested parties from different ministries and esteemed establishments. Determining the nature of the action in the area of food and nutrition security is the primary objective of the chapter.