Sajid Irfan

With food inflation already going through the roof at 30%, the ongoing monsoon spells have cut a swathe through the ready-to-reap crops across the country, causing shortages of staples, vegetables and fruits in markets and an unbearable hike in their prices. Ijaz Ali, an economic analyst at the IBA Karachi’s Centre for Business and Economic Research (CBER), told WealthPK that the heavy monsoon rains in Pakistan have caused a loss of almost $10 billion. He said due to heavy flood in the whole country, almost 60% of crops, vegetables and fruits had totally destroyed.

“The supplies of all kinds of vegetables, particularly onion, potato, tomato, garlic, and ginger, have been affected due to the flooding. Similarly, the prices of all fruits have also gone up due to shortage,” he added.

Ijaz said ginger was being sold at Rs400 per kg, tomato at Rs300 per kg, garlic at Rs290 per kg, and potato at Rs70 per kg. The prices of other vegetables and fruits have also seen a substantial increase in recent days. He said due to shortage of necessary foods like tomato and onion, the government had decided to import them from India through the Wagah border.

“At present, we have very limited supplies of onion and tomato from Balochistan. The onion we are receiving from Balochistan these days is not of good quality, as it is wet due to rains and floods. This all has led to an increase of up to Rs300 per kg each in the prices of these two main vegetables,” he said.

The citizens also face shortage of milk and dairy substances throughout the country. Over 800,000 cattle have been lost countrywide, especially in Balochistan.

“Food and agriculture experts have warned that the prices of all food items will further increase in the coming days. Inflation has now crossed over 40 percent making the people’s life miserable,” he added.

Ijaz said the government had decided to import one hundred containers of tomato and onion from Afghanistan through the Torkham border for distribution to other cities but still the demand outstripped supply. He said import of vegetables from Iran through the Taftan border was not viable, as the Iranian government had increased taxes on imports and exports.

He said monsoon rains had long been wreaking havoc on Pakistan in terms of human casualties and destruction of already fragile infrastructures but climate change had further increased their frequency, ferocity and unpredictability in recent years.

Credit : Independent News Pakistan-WealthPk