Ensuring food security and nutrition

The importance of agriculture now-a-days is more as nutrition and food security issues rather than as a growth driver for the economy. Economic growth is not only dependent on agricultural growth but a certain growth is required for ensuring food security as the population grows.  An industrial economy is created by a healthy and skilled labour force. A healthy nation cannot be created without healthy population which is much dependent on balanced food and nutrition and health care.
Another important aspect of agriculture is regarding nutrition. We know that there exists 31.5 per cent poverty in Bangladesh (HIES, 2010) who are below the calorie intake of 2,122 k.cal. Under-nutrition is also found in children of Bangladesh. The latest projection of poverty is somewhat like as the following table projections on empirical evidence.
The 2010 Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) reveals that the average level of consumption has reached the adequacy level for rice and vegetables, and about to be reached for fruits and fish, but serious deficiency persists for quality food such as pulses, oil, and livestock products and the poor still have an unmet demand for rice.
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.
Though Bangladesh has made significant progress in reducing under-nutrition for children and it is on track for achieving the target set by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the prevalence of underweight children is still high at 36 per cent in 2011. As well as, progress in reducing stunting, the indicator of chronic malnutrition does not show

an encouraging picture. The level is still about 41 per cent, much higher than countries in sub-Saharan Africa, many of them having lower levels of income than in Bangladesh. These pictures elaborate the requirement for nutrition focused agriculture (more diversified crop agriculture) in Bangladesh in order to reduce the malnutrition and poverty in calorie intake.
There has been considerable evolution in official thinking on the concept of food security over the past 25 years. The definition of food security globally has been refined through the various World Food Summits held over the past two decades. The widely-accepted World Food Summit definition reinforces the multi-dimensional nature of food security as including food accessibility, availability, utilisation, and stability (FAO, 2003).
One of the biggest achievements in Bangladesh agriculture has been its ability to secure food for its 152 million people. Food security in Bangladesh has long been synonymous with achieving self-sufficiency in rice production, the dominant staple food. The Bangladesh economy has made respectable progress in rice production, tripling production from 11 million tonnes in 1971 to 33.8 million in 2013. In the past 40 years, the country has moved from being a chronically food-deficit country to near self-sufficiency in its staple food, rice requirement. A study by Sulaiman et. al. (2009) shows the rise of rice price has led to the increase of share of rice in total food expenditure from 49 per cent in 2006 to 62 per cent in 2008 for the poorest group. Although the availability of staple food is largely ensured, the intervention like safety net programmes are critical for realising the improved food security to those who endure chronic poverty and temporary food insecurity.
Bangladesh has made significant progress on the food security front, primarily through efficient food delivery mechanism, improved rural infrastructure, and liberalised agricultural input and output markets. All these factors have contributed positively towards the increase in production of major crops, mainly cereal crops.

However, the country needs to tackle a host of challenges in future if it is to ensure food security for its growing population, to meet their nutritional requirement, and to ensure a balanced diet for its population.
GOVERNMENT POLICY SUPPORT: Agriculture is a private sector-driven activity but there is a requirement of public intervention in input and output markets with the objective of maintaining stable prices and supplies of staple food products. Public interventions in agriculture have implications for the sector's long-term development, its diversification and productivity improvement. The government of Bangladesh has adopted a wide range of policies relating to agricultural credit, input market liberalisation, irrigation, and farm subsidy. In addition, many of the fiscal, trade or monetary policies of the government have important consequences for the development of the sector. Certain policies have not been able to fulfill their respective objectives.
INPUT POLICIES: Ensuring quality seed for the farmers at an affordable price is a critical requirement for stable and sustained growth of agricultural production. A National Seed Policy (NSP) has been prepared by the government in order to ensure that "the best quality seeds of improved varieties of crops are conveniently and efficiently available to farmers for increasing crop production, productivity, per capita farm income and export earnings".
The National Agricultural Extension Policy (NAEP) also suggested a coordinated scheme by the relevant organisations involved in extension services for production, preservation and distribution of good quality HYV seeds, availability of fertilizer, and efficient water management for irrigation. So long agriculture remains a smallholder peasant profession, subsidisation of agricultural inputs and support by micro-credits has to be continued.
AGRICULTURAL CREDIT POLICY: Access to credit is considered an integral part of modernisation and commercialisation of agriculture. As a sector, agriculture depends more on credit primarily because of seasonal variations in farmers' returns. As revealed in a recent study, formal credit has strong positive impact on food security of households as well as agricultural output by financing modern method of production, irrigation and other input costs (Khondker et al, 2013).
In recent years, the government of Bangladesh has attempted to provide adequate financial support to agriculture sector through extending credit at relatively easy terms and conditions. The Bangladesh Bank (BB) has issued detailed policy guidelines for proper disbursement, utilisation and recovery of agricultural credit which are implemented through the SoBCs (state-owned commercial banks) as well as the specialised banks like the  Agricultural Development Bank).  
Dr. Shamsul Alam is Member, the General Economics Division, Bangladesh Planning Commission. In preparing this article, research support was provided by Syed Al Bin Hassan, Assistant Chief, GED, Planning Commission, now on study leave to the CDE, Williams College, Massachusetts, USA.
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