Rising risk of food system

The food system in most countries in Asia and the Pacific region has come under increased risk in recent years. An indication is also there that the risk will grow in the near future, which means more people may face food insecurity in the coming days. A newly introduced framework titled, 'Insights on Food System Risks (INFER), which provides insights into the multidimensional risks of food systems, brought the issue to the fore. Jointly prepared by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) and the World Food Programme (WFP), the INFER Index uses 95 indicators to generate food system risk scores and profiles. So, it helps to understand the extent of multidimensional threats to food system.
The food system is a 'sum of actors and interactions along the food value chain,' according to the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). The food value chain includes input supply and production of crops, livestock, fish, and other agricultural commodities to transport, processing, retail, wholesale, and preparing foods for consumption and disposal. As per the IFPRI definition, food systems also include the supporting policy environments and cultural customs around food. So, under an ideal food system, people get better access to nutritious, healthy, safe and sufficient foods in a productive and efficient way. The food production should also be environmentally sustainable, climate-smart, and inclusive. In short, an efficient food system is key to ensuring food security, which implies the availability of adequate supplies of food at a global and national level, along with adequate nutrition and well-being.
Obviously, many countries, including Bangladesh, have yet to develop an ideal food system to face various risks involved. Mitigating the food system risks is a big challenge and requires a comprehensive understanding of multiple dimensions of the system. Though Bangladesh achieved self-sufficiency in rice output in the late '90s and many other food items like fish, vegetables and fruits during the last decade, it still needs to go ahead.
The INFER framework or index identified the extent of risks of the food systems in the counties across the region by calculating each country's overall food system risk score. The higher the overall score, the riskier is the country's food system. The overall score is calculated by putting equal weight to the products of the three risk dimensions: (i) hazard and exposure, (ii) vulnerability, and (iii) adaptive capacity. There are three main categories under hazard and exposure, namely, natural, economic, and socio-political. There are six common categories for the two other risk dimensions named vulnerability and adaptive capacity. These are: availability, access, utilisation, stability, agency, and sustainability. Under all the categories of the three risk dimensions, there are 41 components like drought, water stress, food price inflation, financial system etc. Overall, INFER reviews and determines the risks to three food system outcomes. These are: (i) human health and nutrition; (ii) shared prosperity; and (iii) ecosystem health and sustainability.
The result of the newly introduced index has critical implications for countries like Bangladesh for understandablereasons. The index showed that Afghanistan faced the highest risk in its overall food system last year, followed by Pakistan and Iran, respectively. Sri Lanka became the fourth on the list of general food system risks, followed by Turkmenistan and Papua New Guinea. India and Bangladesh ranked seventh and eighth, respectively, in the index, followed by Mongolia and Myanmar. Bangladesh scored 46.16 in the index. Thus, five out of the ten top countries facing higher food system risks last year were from South Asia.
Compared with the previous years, the situation in Bangladesh indicates an improvement in terms of food system risk. The country's overall risk declined by around 11.74 per cent in the last two decades, since 2000 to be precise. The risk dimension of hazard and exposure also reduced by around 15 per cent, and that is for a lack of adaptive capacity, which dropped by 13.20 per cent. Vulnerability-related risk has also dropped by 6.76 percent since 2000. All these are encouraging trends reflecting the country's persistent effort to ensure food security and reduce hunger and malnutrition.
One may also analyse the country's food system risk status using the global hunger index (GHI). Bangladesh ranked 81st out of the 125 countries in 2023. In South Asia, Bangladesh is well ahead of Pakistan (102), India (111) and Afghanistan (114) but far behind Sri Lanka (60) and Nepal (69).
For Bangladesh, the GHI score is 19.0, indicating the country's overall hunger situation is at the last stage of the moderate level. If the situation deteriorates slightly, it will slip into the first stage of the severe group. Thus, there is no room for complacency regarding reducing hunger and food system risk.
So, Bangladesh needs to work persistently to reduce the risk to the food system. In this connection, the National Food and Nutrition Security Policy (NFNSP), adopted in 2020, is critical. The policy has five core objectives: (a) ensuring the availability of safe and nutritious food for a healthy diet and (b) improving access to safe and nutritious food at an affordable price. The policy also prioritises adequate supply and consumption of diversified, safe, and nutritious food. An action plan to attain the objectives has also been devised.
The current geo-political tension, mainly due to the Russia-Ukraine war and the Middle-East conflict, has already emerged as a significant threat to global food security. The food system risk may also increase in the coming days if a coordinated mitigation mechanism is not developed. Moreover, improving the food system is a daunting task that requires concerted efforts, including massive investment and trade cooperation. This column will focus on the topic in the next week.

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