In Bangladesh, food security is structurally synonymous with rice security, as the crop serves as the foundational backbone of the nation's nutrition, rural economy and agriculture. Rice constitutes a staggering 94 per cent to 97 per cent of the country's total food grain production. So, it is hardly surprising that Bangladesh is the third-largest rice producer in the world. But the country's extreme reliance on this single staple crop creates a delicate vulnerability where any disruption to production directly compromises overall food security as well as national stability. In this context, some developments, particularly on the weather front, are concerning. The monsoon rainfalls last month (June) have been, according to the Met office, the lowest (29 per cent less than the normal) in the last seven years. Consider that seedbeds for Transplanted Aman rice is typically prepared between late June and mid-July marking the advent of monsoon rainfalls. Low rate of rainfall means farmers will have to depend on irrigation water which obviously raises the cost of production. If the trend of less rainfalls in the monsoon months continues in the coming years, it has to be understood as a fallout from climate change. In that case, Aman, which constitutes 38 to 40 per cent of the country's total rice production, is at stake. Then, like the winter crop, Boro rice, it too would be totally dependent on irrigated water and thereby imply rise in its cost of production. Against this backdrop, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) forecasts that rice production in the current fiscal year (2026-27) in the country might fall by 5.0 per cent, that is, by 0.2 million metric tonnes. It may leave a negative impact on the country's overall food security.
The UN's global hunger-fighting body, FAO, further notes that during the 2026-27 period, the rice production might even fall globally. The main reason for this decline in rice production would be the rice farmers' lack of incentive in growing the crop. Uncertainties in the weather pattern attributable to El Nino would result in the rise in the cost of rice production. That would be due to the costs of inputs including irrigation water required to grow rice. Notably, El Nino is a periodic climate phenomenon characterised by unusually warm ocean surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific. Even so, it (Pacific Ocean surface temperatures) can significantly disrupt weather patterns across South Asia. Small wonder that in Bangladesh, it commonly triggers weaker monsoon rains, delayed rainfalls and prolonged heatwaves. These climatic shifts directly strain agricultural calendar, threatening crop production. So, in the face of uncertain weather, rice growers would sustain loss as the market price of rice would be less than its production cost. Unsurprisingly, rice farmers have been switching to some other crops that generate cash. The FAO fears that the impact of El Nino may lead to a fall in global rice production by 1.6 per cent this fiscal year. In this connection, the FAO earlier predicted that in the 2025-26 period, rice production in Bangladesh might amount to 41.5 million tonnes. Last fiscal's production figure is yet to be made available. Accepting the FAO's forecast for FY26's rice production as well as that for FY27 (i.e., a fall by 5.0 per cent) to be correct, rice production in the current fiscal year in the country might come down to 41.3 million tonnes.
However, the absolute fall in the production of rice, in the final analysis, might lead to serious food insecurity in the country. If global rice production (mainly in Asia), too, falls due to the vagaries of weather including El Nino, as forecast by FAO, then it may in the long run result in rise in the price of this staple in the global market, too. In that case, cost of imported rice would also increase. All these developments do not bode well for the country's overall food security. And that cannot be allowed to happen under any circumstances. Rice farmers must be given the required incentives so they may not lose interest in growing rice in excess of what they would produce for the sustenance of their families. Given the impacts of unpredictable weather such as less rainfall or even outright droughts plus the increase in salinity in the soil of coastal areas due to climate change, the government must consider the situation as an emergency and begin to take steps to secure adequate rice production to feed the growing millions.
Bangladesh should pivot its rice cultivation policy towards climate-resilient agriculture and livelihood protection. With the UN forecasting long-term yield declines, immediate steps must include subsidising stress-tolerant seeds (drought/flood), expanding crop insurance, and integrating early-warning systems into local district planning to offset FAO-reported global production risks.
A robust localised policy to secure food reserves should focus on a slew of measures. Those include expanding the distribution of salinity-tolerant and short-duration varieties (e.g., BRRI dhan) across the coastal belts and drought-prone regions, which are highly susceptible to climate shocks. Alongside these measures, there should also be steps to implement localised crop insurance and direct cash subsidies for smallholder farmers as a buffer against soaring fuel and fertiliser costs. Other steps would involve facilitating development of local seed networks across vulnerable agricultural hubs to secure indigenous and resilient crop varieties of rice before planting seasons. On the national scale, move should be afoot to bolster grain reserves through timely procurement directly from local growers while utilising international trade corridors to stabilise domestic market prices. All these measures concern securing adequate production, supply and storage of the staple crop, rice. But the staple alone cannot be all about comprehensive food security. That would require shifting focus beyond staple crops.
To that end, the government should focus on dietary diversification, climate resilient agriculture including its mechanisation. Towards dietary diversity, promoting production and consumption of high-value, nutrient-rich foods such as vegetables, fruits, pulses and alternative protein sources (livestock and aquaculture) would be necessary to combat malnutrition. But despite the achievement of stated self-sufficiency in baseline protein production, the country faces critical systemic lacunae in matching nutritional quality, feed security and climate resilience to meet the rising population's needs. The primary gaps occur across supply chain vulnerabilities, ecological limits, and structural inefficiencies. The gaps include, for instance, severe shortages of high-quality green feed for cattle, bacterial and viral attacks against cattle and poultry birds, smallholder farmers' lack of access to high-yielding climate adaptable breeds and so on. These call for taking measures for prompt addressing.
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