Challenges for food security

The main challenge in the way of progress towards food security comes from continuing growth of population. The progress in reducing population growth in Bangladesh, from 3 per cent per year at 1971 independence to about 1.2 per cent now, is laudable. But there are indications that the progress made in fertility reduction has slowed down in recent years. In Chittagong and Sylhet Divisions, total fertility rate is still higher than three, while the national average is 2.3, and it is less than two in the Khulna Division. Strong traditional norms and socio-cultural conditions in Chittagong and Sylhet Divisions contribute to low acceptance of family planning which will not be easy to overcome. The population is still increasing by 1.8 million every year. Rice production has to increase by 0.4 million tons every year to meet the need for staple food for the growing population. The increase in domestic production at that rate would be difficult due to several supply side factors. Arable lands have been shrinking by 0.6 per cent every year due to demand for housing and industries, and infrastructure, as well as loss of land from river erosion. With global warming and climate change, another one-sixth of the lands may be submerged with brackish water over the next 40 years due to rising sea levels with adverse impact on soil salinity. The climate change may make monsoon more erratic, raising risks in sustaining the growth in crop production.
The soil fertility has been declining due to overexploitation of soil nutrients, and imbalanced use of fertilisers. The ground water aquifer has gone down due to over-use of ground water through irrigating dry season rice (boro rice) that was the predominant source of growth of rice production over the last two decades. The low-hanging fruits of irrigation expansion and technological progress have already been harvested. Almost 75 per cent of the net cultivated lands are now irrigated and over 85 per cent of the rice lands is already grown with high- yielding modern rice varieties. Due to all these factors, the potential for further increase in production through the dry season irrigated rice farming is getting limited.
The agrarian structure of Bangladesh is dominated by small and marginal farmers, many of them being tenants. Despite rapid rural-to-urban migration, the number of farm households continues to increase and the farm size is getting smaller. The large and medium landowners invest agricultural surplus on non-farm business, renting out the lands to marginal farmers and agricultural labourers. As a result, the tenancy market has been expanding and with it, the incidence of marginal farming. The exploitative rental arrangements, the inability to mobilise savings and credit for agricultural investment, and lack of information and knowledge of small farmers may act as constraints to adoption of modern farming practices that could slow down agricultural growth.
Bangladesh is projected to be most seriously affected by climate change. The lands available from crop farming in the coastal region may gradually be reduced due to inundation from sea water and intrusion of saline water inwards. The risk in rain-fed rice farming may increase due to erratic monsoons and increased frequency of floods, droughts and cyclones. The high risk may induce farmers to continue to use inputs in sub-optimal levels and may deter adoption of input-intensive modern technology and farm management practices.
There are some silver linings, however. With economic progress, people now have the capacity to access a diversified diet with intake of less rice and more quality food. The per capita consumption of rice has declined by almost 1.5 kg per person per year over 2000-2010. Japan and South Korea had the same experience during their process of economic development. The experience of the developed countries show that when per capita cereal consumption declines as human food, the total cereal consumption increases as cereals are used as feed for livestock production, the demand for which increases faster with economic progress. It is, however, unlikely to happen in Bangladesh as rice, which is a high-cost cereal, may not be used as livestock feed. The growing demand for livestock feed may be met with maize whose production has been growing. So, despite the growth of population, the demand for rice may remain stagnant or even decline if Bangladesh can sustain rapid growth in per capita incomes. Indeed, Bangladesh may turn out to be a rice exporting country if it becomes competitive in the world market through adoption of water-saving rice technologies and adoption of submergence and drought-tolerant high-yielding rice varieties in the monsoon season.
A major issue for food security and promotion of farmers' livelihood is high temporal and seasonal fluctuations in food prices. The volatility in prices is a major constraint to increasing production of the perishable crops such as potato and vegetables. The government should provide an enabling environment to link farmers to markets through public-private partnership for increased investment in processing and storage facilities and removing constraints in the value chain. The government should also provide support to explore export market for vegetables, investment in quality control for domestic production and processing, and ensure compliance with the food safety regulations for entry of vegetables and fish into markets of developed countries.
Although Bangladesh has made good progress in pond aquaculture by converting low-lying rice lands into fish ponds, the fast flood plains that remain under water for four to six months during the year remain under-exploited. Since these are common property resources, little investment is made in fish culture and hence the fish yield is very low, a fraction of what is achieved in the same ecosystem in Vietnam and Cambodia. We need to organise the local community - land owners, the landless and the fishing folk - for culture fishery, and ensure a fair distribution of produce among them through a harmonised community-based fish culture. Already such a model known as 'Daudkandi model' has been demonstrated in Bangladesh. The government may encourage NGOs to mobilise the local community to invest in commercial fish farming in the seasonal flood plains. This is a potential area of huge increase in fish production in future.
Recently, women's involvement in agriculture has been growing. Their labour is an additional resource that can contribute to substantial increase in the production of quality food. Women are already heavily engaged in homestead-based vegetable and fruit gardening, and subsistence-based poultry and livestock farming. The potential is huge in this area. The government and NGOs should support women farmers in playing a greater role in sustaining food security by providing easy access to knowledge of improved technology and disease management, supply of quality seeds, and access to finance at easy terms. Through production and consumption of home-produced nutritious food, and better care of children, particularly on appropriate feeding practices such as early initiation of breast feeding, compulsory breast feeding for first six months after birth, and complementary feeding with nutritious food till two years of age of the child (the first thousand-day approach), women can be instrumental in linking agriculture to nutrition and reducing under-nutrition and malnutrition.
The writer, Professor of Economics at Jahangirnagar, wrote this article in collaboration with late Mahabub Hossain who was
distinguished Professor of BRAC University.
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