ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif Sunday called for taking collective steps to ensure food security in the world.
In tweets on social media platform Twitter on the occasion of World Food Day, he said the recent devastating floods in Pakistan had destroyed standing crops on millions of acres.
He said an agricultural country like Pakistan had to import edible items to compensate for these crop losses.
حالیہ تباہ کن سیلاب نے لاکھوں ایکڑ پر تیار فصلوں کو تباہ کر دیا۔ پاکستان جیسے زرعی ملک کو بھی اس نقصان کے ازالے کیلئے اشیاءِ خوردنوش درآمد کرنا پڑیں گی۔ آج خوراک کا عالمی دن دنیا کے مختلف ممالک کے غذائی تحفظ کو یقینی بنانے کیلئے مجموعی عالمی اقدامات کی اہمیت اجاگر کرتا ہے۔ /۱
— Shehbaz Sharif (@CMShehbaz) October 16, 2022
“Today World Food Day highlights the need for collective measures of the world to ensure food security of different countries.”
“Due to climate-induced natural disasters and because of rising prices in the international market, there is a risk of further shortage of already scarce nutritional food at the international level,” the prime minister added.
موسمیاتی تبدیلی کی وجہ سےقدرتی آفات اور عالمی منڈی میں بڑھتی ہوئی قیمتوں سےغذائیت سےبھرپور خوراک،جس کی پہلے سےہی کمی تھی،کی عالمی سطح پرمزید قلت کا خدشہ ہے۔ موسمیاتی تبدیلی ہماری زندگیوں پرکئی طریقےسے منفی اثرات مرتب کر رہی ہےجس میں عالمی سطح پرغربت اور بھوک میں اضافہ سر فہرست ہے
— Shehbaz Sharif (@CMShehbaz) October 16, 2022
He said that the climate change was having negative effects on our lives and the increase in poverty and hunger were the foremost issues.
He said that World Food Day highlights the importance of global steps to ensure food security in different countries. After natural disasters due to climate change and rising prices in the global markets, the world is witnessing a shortage of food which would be intensified in the coming days.
PM Sharif added that climate change is giving negative impacts on our lives in many aspects in which poverty and hunger at the top of the list.
Earlier in the month, PM Sharif said that Pakistan should not be forced to go out with a “begging bowl” to rich polluting nations after the floods devastated the country, stressing that he would be seeking “climate justice” from the international community.
In the second part of his interview by The Guardian published, the prime minister warned that Pakistan was facing an unprecedented crisis of health, food security and internal displacement after the “apocalyptic” monsoons put a third of Pakistan’s regions under water.
With Pakistan responsible for 0.8 per cent of global carbon emissions, PM Shehbaz Sharif said it was the “responsibility of the developed countries, who caused these emissions, to stand by us”.
“I’ve never seen this kind of devastation, inundation and suffering of our people in my lifetime,” he said, adding: “Millions have been displaced, they have become climate refugees within their own country.”
While the international community has given billions in funds and donations and commitments for further support, the premier was clear it was “not enough”.
