The proud Pakistani tradition of feeding the hungry is strained as food prices soar

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/03/01/ [login to see] /food-and-fuel-are-out-of-reach-for-many-pakistanis-because-of-the-economic-crisi
A dervish in a scarlet whirling skirt, bells strapped to his chest, raises his fist to salute a Sufi saint buried in a soaring shrine on the outskirts of the capital Islamabad.

The dervish, Ghulam Mohammad says he loves the saint, Bari Imam, because he comforted the afflicted. Muhammad wishes more people would do the same. Lately, all he sees in his travels from shrine to shrine across the length of Pakistan are poor and hungry people.

Since the pandemic, Pakistan has been battered by calamities that have pushed up the price of food and fuel: Russia's invasion of Ukraine and two events made more extreme by climate change: a spring heatwave that shriveled harvests, then summer floods that drowned them. Now there's an economic crisis so dire, the country risks default.

Inflation reached nearly 25% last year, but the figure conceals dramatic variations. In poorer rural areas, prices of food rose even higher.