by Mysbah Balagamwala
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| Photo Credit: Collective for Social Science Research - Naila Mahmood |
For the Life in a Time of Food Price Volatility
project, we visited a low-income neighborhood in Karachi to document
the impact of food prices on residents and asked them about their food
consumption, livelihoods and hardships faced. We found that the main
source of vulnerability for households in Karachi was not a rise in
prices but rather strikes in the city and fuel shortages.
In our field site situated in Gulshan Town Union Council of
Karachi, the poorest households depend on wages earned on a daily basis.
Their main occupations are daily wage labourers, hawkers, shopkeepers
and auto-rickshaw drivers.
While daily wages were reported to have increased in the last few
years (from 100 - 150 to 400 - 500 rupees), a labourer has no guarantee
that they will find work on a particular day and be able to earn a
wage.
Daily wage earners everywhere face similar constraints in terms
of finding work due to an increase in the number of labourers vying for
the same jobs as well as fluctuations in the number of jobs available.
But for daily wage earners in Karachi, two other constraints have come
up - strikes and fuel shortages.
When we asked our respondents which days are difficult for them and why, we got many responses such as: "Twice a week there are strikes here. Then we starve for days." And: "When
the Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) stations are closed, transportation
closes down too. If CNG stations are closed, we cannot reach anywhere."
In Karachi, political conditions are volatile and political
parties or groups often call for strikes as a protest or a day of
mourning. On such days, businesses are closed and transport on the
roads is at a minimum. The brother of one of our respondents had to stop
going to work at the carpenter's shop because of violence in the area.
Moreover, due to a shortage of natural gas in the country, there
is fuel rationing and CNG stations are closed on certain days of the
week. This affects transport and hence livelihoods for many since public
transport such as buses and rickshaws have converted from diesel to CNG
in the last few years.
Mrs K's husband who is a rickshaw driver told us: "CNG
is unavailable on Fridays and Saturdays and the stations open at 9:30
on Sunday. Because of this, the rickshaw doesn't run for two days. Then
from where can we arrange money to run our home?"
Being a resident of Karachi myself, political instability or violence in the city are disruptions of normal working life for me. However, the impact is limited to not being to get work done on time or not being able to run an errand I was meant to.
Being a resident of Karachi myself, political instability or violence in the city are disruptions of normal working life for me. However, the impact is limited to not being to get work done on time or not being able to run an errand I was meant to.
For daily wage labourers, such as our respondents, a strike day
or a CNG closure means a day's worth of wages (or sometimes even more)
is lost. Most poor urban households buy food items such as vegetables
and even at times wheat flour and ghee (cooking fat) on a daily basis
and their earnings for the day does not stretch beyond daily household
requirements. On a day when they have not managed to earn money they
have to resort to cutting down food consumption.
Fuel shortages and rationing of energy along with state fragility
are important crises being faced by Pakistan and both were key
political issues in the election campaigns last month.
Our findings reflect how these macro-level concerns manifest at
the individual and community level. We know that a link between food and
fuel exists at the global level. In 2007-08 during the world food price
crisis the increase in the price of oil further escalated already high
food prices ; affecting food accessibility. We can now see the
connection between food and fuel on a more local level in Karachi, and
possibly other urban parts of Pakistan, where CNG shortages is the cause
of vulnerability to food insecurity.
This blog originally appeared on Oxfam's Policy and Practice Blog in June 2013.
Mysbah Balagamwala is a Research Associate at the Collective for Social Science Research and is one of the lead researchers in Pakistan for the IDS-Oxfam GB Life in a Time of Food Price Volatility.
