Food security exists when all people, at all times, have access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to maintain healthy and productive lives. The key elements of food security are: a) availability of enough food from domestic production and/or imports to meet the demand, b) access of food to all people at all times through enough incomes and affordable prices, c) proper hygiene and sanitary practices and safe water for utilisation of food to have optimum impact on health and nutrition, and d) a regulatory framework in place and its proper implementation for controlling contamination to ensure food safety.
ACHIEVEMENT IN FOOD SECURITY: AVAILABILITY OF FOOD
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 tons in 1971 to 33.8 million in 2013. The progress in reduction of fertility has contributed to respectable reduction in population that has reduced the pressure on the growth in demand for food. The per capita rice production has increased substantially over the level at independence.
The growth of production was achieved by fast adoption by farmers of higher yielding crop varieties developed by scientists, supported by rapid expansion of irrigation infrastructure through private investment in tube wells, favourable supply of agricultural credit and subsidies on fertilisers and irrigation.
Notable progress has also been achieved in the production of potatoes and vegetables. The growth has been particularly impressive in the last decade. The major problem faced by potato and vegetable production is the volatility in prices leading to large temporal and seasonal fluctuations in prices and production. The production of most other food crops pulses, oilseed and sugarcane has either remained stagnant or has declined. The production of oilseeds has picked up in recent years due to favourable prices, progress in the development of higher yielding varieties, and identification of favourable agro-ecological niche. The dependence of Bangladesh on the world market for the availability of pulses, edible oil and sugar and milk has been growing, along with wheat that does not suit the agro-ecological environment of Bangladesh.
Bangladesh has rich biological resource base for fish production. For balanced nutrition, fish occupies a significant position in the dietary habits of the people. The growth in fish production was sluggish in the 1970s, it picked up in the 1980s, and was very rapid (6.6 per cent per year) in the recent years due to expansion of pond aquaculture. Entrepreneurs have started converting deepwater rice lands into fish ponds and are engaging themselves in highly productive and profitable intensive pond aquaculture. The prices of cultured fish such as tilapia, koi, and pangas have declined compared to other fish. Because of low prices for cultured fish, fish is now affordable to most low-income consumers.
Limited progress has been made in the production of meat and milk and eggs. With economic progress the demand for animal products has grown by more than five percent per year. The number of cattle and other animals has grown by only 1.8 per cent per year during 2007-13, while the number of poultry birds has increased by 3.5 per cent. The growth in livestock and poultry farming is constrained by lack of feed, risk imposed by avian flu and other animal diseases, and poor processing, storage and marketing infrastructure.
ACCESS TO FOOD
The availability of food in the market is not enough for achieving food security. In a market economy, the access to food depends on four elements: a) production-based entitlement that depends on the ownership of land, b) trade-based entitlement that depends on adequate import and affordable market prices, c) labour-based entitlement that depends on the employment and wages, and d) transfer-based entitlement that includes gifts, remittances from relatives, and relief and social protection provided by the government. The ability of the household and the people to access food is the outcome of the complex operation and interactions of all these elements.
In Bangladesh, 70 per cent of the people live in rural areas where agriculture is the major source of livelihood. Almost 60 per cent of the rural households are engaged in farming. The farming household can access their food from self-production and/or trading the surplus with other foods available in the local market. But the landownership is highly unequally distributed, and so is the access to food from self-production. Almost 30 per cent of the households do not own any land and another 35 per cent own only up to half an acre.
Such tiny landownership is insufficient to meet the food needs of the households, even if the farmer uses cutting edge technologies. A tenancy market is in operation that provides access to land to landless and marginal landowners for farming. But the terms and conditions of tenancy do not favour tenants. So, a large proportion of marginal and tenant farmers go to the market to access food as their own production (after payment of rent and interest for loans) is inadequate to meet the household need.
The dominant determinant of access to food is the level and the growth of income. In Bangladesh, the per capita income remained almost stagnant till the end of 1980s due to slow growth of gross national product (GNP) and high population growth. The income growth per year has accelerated since 1990, reaching 6.2 per cent in recent years. But, the income is highly unequally distributed and the disparity has been growing. As a result nearly one-third of the people still (2010) live below the poverty line, with inadequate income to access food from the market.
An indicator often used to assess the capacity of the poor to access food from the market is the level and trend in real wages. This indicator shows that since the mid-1990s, there has been a favourable trend in the income of the households who depend on selling labour in the market, such as agricultural wage labourers, transport operators and construction workers. The only low-income group who have not been able to increase their real income are industrial labourers, particularly the unskilled workers in the garment industry and the fixed wage earners in the public sector.
The hike in food prices after the food crisis in 2007-08 has had a negative impact on the real wages and access to food. Sharp increase in food grain prices significantly decreased the real income of poor households who spend over half of their income on staple food. At the same time, the volatility in producer prices increases risks and uncertainty, and discourages the subsistence farmer to invest in agriculture. The volatility in food prices remains an issue for achieving seasonal and temporal stability in food security.
Bangladesh is often at the mercy of natural calamities such as floods, droughts and cyclones. Riverine Bangladesh also witnesses frequent land erosion, causing thousands of people to lose their land every year. Despite the gains achieved by Bangladesh in augmenting availability of staple food, a safety net programme is essential to insulate the poverty-stricken population from chronic as well as temporary food insecurity that results from external shocks.
A number of food safety net programmes are in operation in Bangladesh, each with its own specific objectives and target population. These include Test Relief, Vulnerable Group Feeding, Vulnerable Group Development, Food for Work, Employment Guarantee Scheme, etc. A number of social protection programmes such as vulnerable group feeding, allowance for destitute women, and old age pensions have also been introduced to support food security of the extremely needy people.
The government has given high priority to the safety nets programme for ensuring food security. Currently nearly 2.0 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) are allocated for safety nets and social protection. The evaluation of the programmes, however, revealed several limitations; a) large overheads due to operation of a large number of small programmes by different ministries and departments often with the same objectives, b) improper targeting of beneficiary households due to political pressure, and c) leakages in implementation from rent-seeking at various stages.
ACHIEVING NUTRITION
SECURITY
The acceleration in economic and agricultural growth has made a positive impact on the diversity of food intake, away from the rice and vegetable-based diet to diet containing fish, egg and meat. 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.
The average numbers mask serious inequality in the distribution of consumption across the income scale. While the richer sections of the society are being able to gradually reduce their cereal intake and increase the diversify in their diet, the poor still have an unmet demand for rice. For all the other food items, consumption for all income groups have increased, marginally for the bottom 40 per cent but substantially for the top 20 per cent. A recent International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) study notes that nearly 20 per cent of the population is still calorie deficient and the gender disparity in calorie intake still persists.
Bangladesh has made significant progress in reducing undernutrition for the children (see Figure 1). The prevalence on underweight children for their age declined from 60 per cent in 1990 to 36 per cent in 2011, and is on track for achieving the target set by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). However, progress in reducing stunting, the indicator of chronic malnutrition, shows a less encouraging picture. The level is still about 41 per cent, much higher than countries in sub-Saharan Africa, many of them have lower levels of income than in Bangladesh. Over 2007 to 2011, the level of stunting declined by only two per cent points. Stunting affects the cognitive ability and the immunity of the children from diseases. The prevalence of wasting, an indicator of current nutritional status, remains at an alarming level of 15 to 17 per cent, with very little improvement over time.
Low birth weight for the new born in Bangladesh (22 per cent) is among the highest in the world. The nutritional status of women shows a better trend. The proportion of women with chronic energy deficiency has declined from 52 per cent in 1997 to 25 per cent in 2011. But the prevalence of obesity among women and children is growing.
The hidden hunger -- the insufficiency in the intake of iron, zinc and Vitamin A that causes major diseases such diarrhoea and anaemia and poor eye sight -- remains a major health and nutrition issue. An emerging health issue is availability of safe food. A growing concern is the use of harmful chemicals by marketing intermediaries in the processing and preservation of perishable foods. The government has enacted a food safety act in 2013 to address the problem. The issue is whether the provision of the act could be enforced. As in many other regulatory areas, those in charge of implementing the regulatory provision may go for rent-seeking instead of strict enforcement of the Act.
This is an adapted version of a presentation, made by Dr. Mahabub Hossain, at the first conference of Bangladesh Economists' Forum, held in Dhaka on June 21-22, 2014
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