A researched piece on food security and challenges facing Pakistan on the issue has landed Views and News contributor Muhammad Luqman Agahi Award
Luqman, who is working full time as senior correspondent for SAMAA TV channel, has been writing on agricultural subjects for a long time.
Blessed with fertile lands in its central and southern provinces of Punjab and Sindh, Pakistan has a rich farming history. Be it wheat or rice, maize or sugarcane, the South Asian country has bumper harvests, the citation notes.
Yet huge piles of grains in the stocks maintained by public and private sector have failed to ensure food security for the country with around 200 million population.
According to the journalist, food security issue in Pakistan is not only a result of dwindling harvests on account of climate change but also uneven distribution of wealth that hinders low income people from buying food stuff especially the high calorie items.
“Such food security contradictions have been intriguing for the food security bloggers like Muhammad Luqman, the Lahore-based economic journalist.
“Muhammad Luqman has been practicing the agriculture journalism since 1991. “ I don’t hail from any landed family. But I grew up in agro-industrial town of Faisalabad. It was quite natural to have interest in farming,” says 52-year old Muhammad Luqman, practicing TV Journalism these days.
“He also contributes blogs to various websites.”
Luqman says agriculture was not previously covered as a separate beat by reporters when he started contributing stories on this important sector.
“But with the passage of time, this important beat was assigned to reporters in print and electronic media. Even an association of Agriculture Journalists was formed in Lahore, the eastern city of Pakistan.”
The prestigious Agahi award has been instituted by a non-governmental organization, Mishal Foundation, co-founded by Amir Jehangir and Ms. Periush Chaudhary.
“My services as a food security writer have been recognized first time. Hopefully, more and more people write on this important issue in the days to come,” the Agahi awardee said..
Besides his journalistic focus on contemporary subjects, Luqman is also working on compilation of a style book or handbook for the agriculture and food security writers both in English and Urdu languages.
“The award has encouraged me to work more and more on this project; I feel sorry when a newspaper or a TV channel provides wrong information about agriculture or food security to the people,” says Muhammad Luqman.
Luqman who started his journalistic pursuits in 1990 as a reporter for the Associated Press of Pakistan studied history and international relations at post-graduate level.
