The last stage of food deprivation is generally called famine. Some would say it is the last nail in the coffin of food crisis. About 175 years back (1840s), Ireland was caught by a severe famine, called 'potato famine' that shattered its socio-economic fabric. The Irish population even today is reported to be substantially smaller than it was in 1845 when the famine had first begun.
In fact, the shadow of famine once used to haunt even Bangladesh, India and China but fortunately its frequency has faded gradually. This can be attributed to advent of modern technology in agriculture, expansion of communication networks, falling population growth rate and various income-generating activities carried out by the government and the private sector.
It is said that more harvests mean less hunger or increased supply of food is an answer to a famine. In the context of food availability and famine, Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen draws on George Bernard Shaw's Man and Superman - to drive home the point that 'sometimes abundance of food may go with hunger'.
Mr Malone, a rich Irish-American, however, refuses to describe the Irish famine of the 1840s as a 'famine.' He tells his English daughter-in-law Violet that his father 'died of starvation in the black 47.' When Violet asked 'what the famine is', Malone replied: "No, it's starvation. When a country is full of food and exporting it, there can be no famine."
But in many countries of the world, the primary cause of famine is not shortage of food availability but lower purchasing power of the people. Jean Dreze, co-author and close academic associate of Amartya Sen, argues that if the sacks of food in India amounting to 60 million tons could be kept one above the other, then the distance from the ground would be 1 million km. This means travelling to the moon and return. Despite this, half of the children under 5 are subjected to malnutrition in India.
The 1974 famine in Bangladesh followed a peak availability of food. The main question is: what does ensure entitlements? Thus, food security should not be seen from the angle of the mechanical balance of only food and population. The most important dimension is the command that a person has: certain required stock of food - be it from own production (e.g., farmer), or buying from the market (e.g., labour and service-holders). It must be remembered that even with augmented supply in the market, people might go without food if they are unable to purchase it or have a reduced capacity to buy it from the market. There may be many reasons behind such incapacity like lack of income or opportunities to sell products in the market.
On the other hand, a shortage of food availability in the domestic market may not always fuel famine if there are opportunities for imports or shared distribution. So what entitlement matters most is what Irish insights tend to tell us.
The entitlement of a household depends on a number of factors. First, it hinges on the command of the household over assets that have market value or can be exchanged in the market to purchase food (endowments). Assets could be diverse but the most important asset of the human society is the labour force or labour power that generates income to buy food. This way, labour, land and other assets enable households to raise their respective entitlements.
Second, the degree of access to food by a household depends on production and its utilisation. More land doesn't necessarily mean more food unless backed by appropriate technologies, knowledge and efficiency that expand the production possibility to increase food supply for food security.
Finally, access to food also depends on exchange conditions such as the price at which exchange of goods and services on which transactions take place or it depends on the rate at which wage rate rises against food items.
It may be mentioned here that during any economic crisis, one group of people could be hit harder than others. For example and again drawing upon Amartya Sen, during the 1943 Bengal famine, the exchange rates between food and non-food items changed radically overnight, and especially, other than wage-food price ratio, the relative price of fish and food swung sharply in favour of fish. At that time, Bengali fishermen faced severe hardship. Of course, fish is also a kind of food but high-quality food that had to be exchanged in the market to buy cheaper low-calorie food (rice) for their survival. "The equilibrium of survival is sustained by this exchange and a sudden fall in the relative price of fish vis-à-vis rice can devastate this equilibrium."
Likewise crisis of the barber class could be compounded for two reasons: (a) decline in the demand following postponement of hair cut by the distressed people, and (b) a sharp fall in the price of haircutting. This class lagged behind in terms of the relative price of the service when, in 1943, in some districts the exchange rate of hair cut and food fell by 70-80 per cent.
A priori reasoning would suggest that the capacity to work would increase income/consumption. A generalisation on this count is flawed because 60 per cent of the daily food intake goes to keep the status quo with regard to body heating, kidney functioning, blood circulation, pulse rate etc. In other words, the lion's share of food intake helps keep things as they are without adding anything. This is called 'metabolic restism' - fixed cost in economic jargon. Therefore, an injection of income/consumption may not induce higher work capacity unless the condition of metabolism is addressed.
How Bangladesh is doing: There is no denying the fact that the famine of 1974, despite food availability at its peak in general in the whole economy, radically changed the food-famine perceptions among politicians and practitioners. Food security is no more seen synonymous with food self-sufficiency. Undoubtedly, the task of keeping food prices stable by augmenting supply is one of the aspects of food self-reliance.
Since independence, rice production in Bangladesh has tripled and higher economic growth and immense improvements in infrastructure have transformed the food economy. It can rightly be claimed that after ups and downs, food production in Bangladesh has for the first time in its history exceeded the target.
But for that matter, it would be naive to assume that Bangladesh has already achieved food security nor can it be claimed that this performance would be sustained in the wake of scarce natural resources, natural calamities, ongoing climate change and increased population. More often than not, the alarm bell about food deficit is rung by the vulnerability in food production due to flood, drought, cyclone etc. Food deficit means unsatisfactory level of food availability.
More importantly, although there has been satisfactory progress in the supply of staple food, the availability of other foods has not increased as it should have. Till now per capita intake of roughly one-thirds of the population is below 2,122 calorie and thus remain poor in terms of food intake. In the meantime and somewhat adding fuel to the existing flame, the rise in food prices, especially in 2008, continued to spell adverse impacts on industrial and agricultural labour classes and self-employed people.
Calorie deficit apart, no less disconcerting is the imbalance in overall food intake, especially when the poor derive four-fifths of the calorie from food. This group spends mostly on rice leaving very little for fat, oil and protein-rich food. Again, given higher nutritional demand, women and children remain in a more vulnerable situation. But this kind of food imbalance is owed no less to lack of knowledge and prevalence of low income than supply of non-rice food such as lentil, oilseeds, meat, milk and eggs. By and large, the reality now is that the existing health environment, fragile sanitary system and unhealthy environment all around are factors that hinder attempts at coming out of the grey area of malnutrition.
The writer is a Professor of Economics at Jahangirnagar University.
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