Socio-Economic Policy Imperatives for Sustainable Food System in Pakistan

Abstract

The deadly waves of COVID-19 have exposed especially the food and health systems around the world. The purpose of this research study is to analyze the linkages of socio-economic factors encroaching on sustainable food systems and ultimately food security. Moreover, the policy twist is required to contrive a holistic and integrated approach for the formulation and implementation of workable public policies to materialize the true dream of a sustainable food system. Multinomial Logistic Regression has been applied to estimate the results. The results reveal the story that the independent variables like subsidized fertilizer availability, seeds productivity performance, changing pattern of sowing, and adaptation to climate change have a high positive and statistically significant relation with crops productivity. Moreover, inputs price volatility and changing sowing patterns have a positive and statistically significant impact on adaptation to climate change. Climate change and the current application of research and development (R and D) showed a negative impact on production. These results bring forth two dimensional (Alpha and Beta) set of policies to rearrange formulation and implementation frameworks. The former emphasizes food baskets acquisition, investing a large amount in health and environment friendly activities. The latter focuses on risk-aversion based healthcare system, food price regulatory framework, and balancing the social-ecosystem.