Climate variability, population growth, and globalization impacting food security in Pakistan

Global hunger has increased recently, returning to levels observed a decade ago. Climate change is identified as a key factor contributing to these increases and is a significant cause of severe food crises. When combined with population growth and globalization, future climate variability is expected to significantly affect global food security. This study examined the influence of climate variability, globalization, and population growth on food security (FS) in Pakistan from 1995 to 2023. Food security data was sourced from the Food and Agricultural Organization, and globalization data was obtained from the KOF Globalization Index. Datasets on climate variability, population growth, unemployment, and inflation were collected from the World Development Indicators. A two-layer principal component analysis was utilized to develop the food security index. Multivariate Generalized Auto-Regressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity was used to assess the impact of globalization, population growth, and climate variability on food security. All indexed components explained more than 50% of the variance, resulting in a food security eigenvalue of 3.603 with a 0.901 proportion. The findings indicated that population growth and climate variability significantly negatively affect Pakistan's food security. Furthermore, the study found that globalization notably mitigates the adverse effects of climate variability and population growth on food security. This research may help alleviate the risk of future undernourishment, reverse current trends of escalating food insecurity, and support the sustainable development goal of eliminating global hunger by 2030.