Growing concern about food insecurity

Members of a community are food insecure if there is not enough food or they cannot afford to buy the food available in the market. It is not always the unavailability of food that constitutes food insecurity. In fact, people may go hungry, even though there is abundant supply of foodstuff in the market. The low-income people of Bangladesh right now are staring in the face of such paucity in plenty. In this connection, it would be worthwhile to have a look at the findings of a recent study conducted by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) titled, 'Food Security Statistics 2023', which give an idea about the state of food insecurity among different segments of the population. Done to prepare statistical data as part of the government's effort, which the organiser of the study said, is to formulate a food security policy based on national priorities, the findings were hardly comforting.
Conducted among 29,760 households across the nation in a personal interview format, the study found that one in every five households of the country is in a state of food insecurity that ranges from moderate to severe levels. That boils down to 37.24 million people out of the total 169.9 million, who are about 22 per cent of the population, according to the BBS's latest population census, experience different levels of food insecurity in the country. One may also recall at this point the World Food Programme (WFP)'s latest survey report of August this year that said 24 per cent people of Bangladesh, or about 40 million, are food insecure. Despite the slight variation in the two results, which might be due to difference of study methodologies, they confirm the fact that food insecurity at a significant level exists in the country. That means a large number of people do not have enough food or the right kind of food to meet their nutritional needs and lead a healthy life.
The BBS study under scrutiny further revealed that food insecurity levels vary from one geographical area to another or from cities to villages. For example, the people of Rangpur are most vulnerable as 29.8 per cent of them, the study found, are food insecure. Similarly, more rural people (24 per cent) than the urban ones (21 per cent) have been found to be food insecure. Given the method of the study that put questions like, if the respondents went without food for a whole day, or if they skipped just one meal, or if they had no food in the house and so on, the findings can provide only a perception of, if not a deeper insight into, the state of food insecurity in the country. Even so the study results at least provide a quantitative aspect of social condition, obviously born of poverty, that is part of everyday experience of the general public. This is more so when people in the low-income bracket are finding it harder to survive, thanks to the escalating cost of living compounded by their ever-eroding income level.
Finally, the abstract figures about food insecurity convey the message to the government that urgent measures be taken to make food affordable to the fixed and low-income people of both rural and urban backgrounds. Also, effective steps are imperative to control runaway price hike of essential commodities to arrest the escalating food insecurity of the people.