Pakistan’s Food Data: Interesting — But It Needs a Much Deeper Look

The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics HIES food consumption data is fascinating — and also deeply troubling.

In this post i have looked at all reports since year 2000 and therefore whats presented is a quarter of century data on per capita food consumption in Pakistan.

Almost every major food item shows a long-term per-capita decline.
Wheat. Pulses. Milk. Beef. Mutton. Rice. Sugar. Even tea.

What makes this especially important is not just the post-2018 crisis.

It is that this decline has been happening since around 2000.

The paradox

Between 2000 and 2018:
• Poverty fell sharply under World Bank lines
• Poverty also fell under Pakistan’s own official poverty lines
• Living standards were widely believed to be improving

Yet per-capita food consumption was already declining during that same period.

This creates a serious analytical puzzle:

How can poverty be falling — while food quantities per person are also falling?

This means:
Either our poverty measurement is missing something important,
or welfare improvements were much more fragile than we assumed,
or rising costs quietly forced households to compress nutrition even while crossing poverty thresholds.

Why recent debates are incomplete

Many accomplished economists and commentators — including people like Dr Miftah Ismail for whom i have great respect — have rightly focused on 2018–2024 deterioration.

But the real story is much bigger.

The decline did not start in 2018.

It started two decades ago.

Post-2018 may have accelerated the trend —but it did not create it.

Why this matters
If food consumption was declining even during years of falling poverty, then:
• Poverty lines may not reflect nutrition security
• Growth may not have translated into dietary welfare
• Vulnerability was always embedded beneath the surface
This also explains why Pakistan today feels far more economically fragile than headline poverty numbers would suggest.
The honest conclusion
This data is extremely valuable —
but it requires serious, careful, multi-dimensional analysis, not quick political interpretation.

Because when a society eats less for 20 years — something structural is happening.

And we have not yet fully understood it.

Source: Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, HIES series (2001–2025)