Availability of food in the market is not enough for achieving food security. In a market economy, the access to food depends on four elements: (a) production-based entitlement that depends on the ownership and operation of land, (b) trade-based entitlement that relies on adequate import and affordable market prices, (c) labour-based entitlement that depends on employment and wages, and (d) transfer-based entitlement that includes gifts, remittances from relatives and relief and social protection provided by the government. The ability of the household and the people to access food is the outcome of complex operation and interactions of all these elements. In this write-up on food-nutrition nexus, we shall heavily draw upon Dr Mahabub Hossain's recent work.
In Bangladesh, 70 per cent of the people live in rural areas where agriculture is the major source of livelihood. Almost 60 per cent of the rural households are engaged in farming. The farming households can access their food from self-production and/or trading the surplus with other foods available in the local market. But landownership is highly unequally distributed and so is the access to food from self-production.
Almost 30 per cent of the households does not own any land and another 35 per cent owns only up to half an acre. Such tiny landownership is insufficient to meet food needs of the households, even if the farmer uses cutting edge technologies. A tenancy market is in operation that provides access to land to landless and marginal landowners for farming. But the terms and conditions of tenancy do not favour the tenants. So, a large proportion of marginal and tenant farmers go to the market to access food as their own production (after payment of rent and interest for loans) is inadequate to meet the household needs.
The dominant determinant of access to food is the level and growth of income. In Bangladesh, the per capita income remained almost stagnant till the end of the1980s due to slow growth of GNP (gross national product) and high population growth. The growth of per capita income has accelerated since 1990 reaching 4.5 per cent per year in the last decade. The income distribution, however, remains skewed, and income disparity has worsened. As a result, nearly one-third of the people still (2010) lives below the poverty line with inadequate income to access food from the market.
An indicator often used to assess the capacity of the poor to access food from the market is the level and trend in real wages. This indicator shows that since the mid-1990s, there has been a favourable trend in the income of the households which depend on selling labour in the market, such as agricultural wage labourers, transport operators and construction workers. This development has been facilitated by government investment on rural roads linking villages to markets, the growth in microfinance that has reached poor households, rapid rural-to-urban migration and fast expansion of agricultural surplus due to increase in agricultural productivity. The only low-income groups, which have not been able to increase their real income, are industrial labourers, particularly the unskilled workers in the garment industry and the fixed wage earners in the public sector.
The hike in food prices after the food crisis in 2007-08 has had a negative impact on real wages and access to food. Sharp increase in food grain prices significantly decreased real income of the poor households which spend over half of their income on staple food. At the same time, the volatility in producer prices increases risks and uncertainty, and discourages the subsistence farmer to invest in agriculture. The volatility in food prices remains an issue for achieving seasonal and temporal stability in food security.
Bangladesh is often at the mercy of natural calamities such as floods, droughts and cyclones. The country also witnesses frequent land erosion by rivers causing thousands of people to lose their lands every year. Many of the households which lose land from river erosion migrate to urban slums accentuating the problem of urban poverty.
Despite the gains achieved by Bangladesh in augmenting availability of staple food, a safety net programme is essential to insulate the poverty-stricken population from chronic as well as temporary food insecurity that results from external shocks. A number of food safety net programmes are in operation in Bangladesh, each with its own specific objectives and target population. These include test relief, vulnerable group development, food-for-work, employment guarantee scheme, etc. A number of social protection programmes such as vulnerable group feeding, allowance for destitute women, and old age pensions have also been introduced to support food security of the extremely needy people.
Currently, nearly two per cent of GDP (gross domestic product) is allocated for safety nets and social protection. The evaluation of the programmes, however, revealed several limitations; (a) large overheads due to operation of a number of small programmes by different ministries and departments often with the same objectives, (b) improper targeting of beneficiary households due to political pressure, and (c) leakages in implementation from rent-seeking at various stages of project implementation.
NUTRITION SECURITY: The acceleration in economic and agricultural growth has made a positive impact on diversity of food intake, away from rice and vegetable- based diet to diet containing fish, egg and meat. The number in the 2010 Household Income and Expenditure Survey reveals that the average level of consumption has reached adequacy level for rice and vegetables, and about to be reached for fruits and fish, but serious deficiency persists for protein- and iron-rich quality food such as pulses, oil, and livestock products. The average number on food intake masks serious inequality in distribution of consumption across the income scale. While the richer sections of the society are being able to gradually reduce their cereal intake and increase diversity in their diet, the poor still have an unmet demand for rice and vegetables. For all the other food items, consumption for all income groups have increased, but only marginally for the bottom 40 per cent while substantially for the top 20 per cent. A recent IFPRI study notes that nearly 20 per cent of the population is still calorie deficient and the gender disparity in calorie intake still persists.
Bangladesh has made significant progress in reducing under-nutrition for children. The prevalence on underweight children for their age declined from 60 per cent in 1990 to 36 per cent in 2011, and is on track for achieving the target set by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). However, progress in reducing stunting, the indicator of chronic malnutrition, shows a less encouraging picture. The level is still about 41 per cent, much higher than countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, many of which have lower levels of income than in Bangladesh. From 2007 to 2011, the level of stunting declined by only two percentage points. Stunting affects the cognitive ability and the immunity of children from diseases. The prevalence of wasting, an indicator of current nutritional status, remains at an alarming level of 15 per cent to 17 per cent, with very little improvement over time.
HIGHEST LOW BIRTH WEIGHT: Low birth weight for the new born in Bangladesh (22 per cent) is among the highest in the world. The nutritional status of women shows a better trend. The proportion of women with chronic energy deficiency has declined from 52 per cent in 1997 to 25 per cent in 2011. But the prevalence of obesity among women and children is growing. The hidden hunger---insufficiency in intake of iron, zinc and Vitamin A causing major diseases such as diarrhea, anemia and poor eye sight---remains a major health and nutrition issue.
The writer is a Professor
of Economics at
Jahangirnagar University.
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