The whole world is to blame for the massive floods in Pakistan and Rathi Palakrishnan says we need to step up the recovery now. Pakistan is facing food shortages after deadly floods left the impoverished country’s agricultural belt under water. The floods, caused by record monsoon rains and melting glaciers in the northern mountains, have affected 33 million people, killed 1,481 people and displaced millions. Homes, crops and livestock have been swept away. The UN secretary-general called it the worst “climate massacre” he has ever seen and called on the international community to help the nation recover. Pakistan contributes less than one percent of global greenhouse gas emissionswhile The G20 states, together, are responsible for 80%.. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that the federal government will match Canadians’ donations to the Humanitarian Coalition up to a maximum of $3 million. Canada will also send another $25 million to support development projects. Palakrishnan, the deputy country director of the United Nations World Food Program in Pakistan, spoke to As It Happens host Nil Köksal. The following is part of their conversation. Give us a sense of what it’s like where you are right now, [and] all over Pakistan because the rains have not let up as I understand it. When you fly over, all you see is water, water and more water. It’s really hard to find a piece of dry land. There have been places that have never seen rain for decades. They looked like a desert, and suddenly this year, they saw rains for the first time…. They have built mud houses that cannot withstand this level of rain, flooding [and] monsoons and their houses have been completely washed away. In this photo taken on September 1, farmer Ashraf Ali Bhanbro stands next to his cotton crops damaged by flood waters in Sammu Khan Bhanbro village in Sukkur, Sindh province. (Asif Hassan/AFP/Getty Images) A large part of the concern is the risk of waterborne disease … [for] tens of millions of people were displaced across Pakistan. But there is another issue now, and that is access to food. How would you describe the current situation on this front in Pakistan? Pakistan is one of the most populous countries in the world – 230 million people – and their social security system is quite mature and quite sophisticated…. It is known as Benazir Income Support Scheme. [The Pakistani government has] they have already adapted it and extended it so that they can give cash subsidy to almost 30 million people, [the] poorer than the poor. They also provide food items, shelter items, all kinds of non-food items to the affected population in a massive way, full scale. And as for the United Nations, there we come. [At] WFP, we scaled up to reach two million people. We have already reached 500,000 people with a mix of different food products — wheat, oil, salt. We are also reaching around 80,000 pregnant women, as well as children under the age of two, with a very, very local, specialized, nutritional product. And that certainly helps alleviate some of the food shortages that one of the population faces. I know you and your colleagues take a look at the situation by talking to farmers. What exactly are the farmers you have spoken to telling you? To understand this and really answer the question, we need to look at the situation before the floods. So first of all, 54 percent of Pakistan’s… population is poor. And 38 million of them are food insecure. Even before the floods, we had really, really high inflation in food and fuel prices. And that really hits the poorest of the poor, and farmers are part of the poorest of the poor. And they confronted me locustswith drought. The animals had massive skin disease. There were heat waves, so there was no spring this year. It went straight from winter straight to hot summer. Then we had the crisis in Ukraine. So the combination of all these factors actually pushed the poorest of the poor even further down. These poor farmers … have to go to … middlemen to get agricultural inputs, be it seeds or fertilizers. So they borrow them on credit. Then they plant. And in the end, as we now know, the flood waters have taken over completely. So there’s no crop to speak of, and they have to pay back those middlemen they borrowed from. What are they hoping for? The international community, in very close cooperation with the government, [needs] to invest We need to help this farmer and provide the agricultural inputs and seeds he needs to replant afterwards. The second thing is that we need the waters to recede… by October. You have three months of planting – so October, November [and] December. And the last last month to plant to have a spring harvest is December. So let’s hope – and everyone is praying, I’m sure – that the waters recede, they pay back the middlemen they owe from the previous agricultural period. receive seeds and various types of agricultural inputs, either from the government or the international donor communities or through [the UN Food and Agriculture Organization]; they are working on community infrastructure programs like the ones we are going to develop in the rebuilding phase. and then they can begin to rebuild and begin to harvest and regain their lost life. A man stands next to an embankment in Mehar town after heavy monsoon rains in Dadu district of Sindh province on Friday. (Aamir Qureshi/AFP/Getty Images) Is there a story of a farmer, do you know someone who you or your colleagues have spoken to that you are interested in their story? They all tell the same story about how much money they owe and how much debt they have and how they have no hope of paying off that debt because they lost the crop. And they sit there in a sea of ​​water around them, trying to find ways to feed their families. Sharing food, sharing meals, sharing tents. They worry about their animals… They worry about waterborne diseases. They are covered by skin sores. They worry that their animals may also have a disease. But they are still optimistic and they are still resilient. And they rely heavily on the international community to come together to help them. What do you want listeners at home to take away from this? I would say put yourself in the shoes of someone living in flood-affected Pakistan. None of what they have encountered in terms of flooding has been their fault. And a lot of that is because of what we’ve done to the planet, collectively. And they pay for it. One day it is Pakistan. This is today. And tomorrow it could be another country, like Canada. And we’ve all seen it on the news… the Canadian heat waves, the fires, the wildfires. So climate change is real and it’s here. And we have to do our little bit to save the planet. And in terms of what we can do to save Pakistan, I would say, you know, mobilize and lobby and support the needs of the Pakistani people… and get the Canadian government to invest in Pakistan, particularly in longer period- recovery period, because it will take a long time for people here to recover and build a livelihood. With files from Reuters and the Associated Press. Interview produced by Morgan Passi. The Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.