Overcoming obstacles to food security

Food security is basically defined as access by all people at all time to the food need for a healthy life. The challenge of food security in Bangladesh is huge. Food security situation in the country is generally examined in terms of three broad dimensions and these are: (1) availability of food, (2) access to food, and (3) utilisation of food.

Availability of food in the country has three sources: (a) domestic food production, (b) food aid, and (c) imports. Admittedly, Bangladesh has more than doubled its domestic foodgrain (rice and wheat) production during the last 33 plus years. Foodgrain production in 1971-72 was 100.46 lakh metric tons (MT) which, according to food ministry's source stood at 261. 33 lakh MT in 2004-2005. But deduction of 10 percent for seed, feed and waste and HIES calculation of 476 gm as average national per capita per day intake of foodgrain for 140 million people, meant the shortfall of 9 lakh MT.

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Food aid and/ or imports are the means left open for filling up shortage of domestic foodgrain production. The former has almost dried up and come to 2-3 lakh MT per year. So, the only course that remains open is to import foodgrain in case of shortfall in domestic production.

Livestock, fisheries and vegetables are the other important food items that may supplement the shortfall of foodgrain. But growth in these sub-sectors is far from satisfactory. According to Banglapedia, the cattle population showed an annual growth rate of 0.25 percent between 1960 and 1990 while the human population grew at about 3 percent per year during the same period. The recent growth rate is much lower than the annual rates of growth required to meet the increasing demand for livestock products, specifically milk and meat.

The situation in the fisheries sub-sector is no better. Available data reveal that in Bangladesh freshwater fisheries constitute around 70 percent and marine fisheries including brackish-water occupy the rest. The production of freshwater fisheries suffers from gradual filling up of many water bodies and the use of pesticide, insecticide etc. in crop fields and thus cannot meet the requirement of a growing population.

Available information suggests that availability of vegetables is only about 1/5th of the recommended requirement of 200gm per person per day.

Availability of foodgrain or even total food does not in itself guarantee food security for households or individuals. Even when aggregate food supplies are adequate, a number of factors may prevent poor households or individuals from having access to required food. These, among others, are:

Income poverty: Food security at household level is closely linked with income poverty. Thousands of poor households lack adequate purchasing power to consume required food. Available data indicate that about 50 percent of the country's citizens earn less than one US dollar a day. Income poverty, which causes food insecurity in the households, results mainly from (a) insufficient government and private investment in physical infrastructure; (b) little non-farming activities in rural areas; (c) poor wages of agricultural labours who, according to labour force survey (LFS) Bangladesh 2002-2003, constitute 51.7 percent of the country's labour force of 15 years and above; (d) seasonal unemployment of agricultural labours; (e) poor wages of labours in industries including readymade garment (RMG); (f) rising inflation that erodes the real income of the poor; and (g) rapid depreciation in the value of taka against dollar and other foreign currencies coupled with syndication of importers and absence of law to protect the rights of the consumers makes imported items, including foodgrain, dearer. Mentionable that around 50 percent of the household income in the country is spent on food.

Ultra poor incapable of earning: The situation is the worst with the ultra poor comprising the destitute, sick, old and infirm who are not capable of participating in income generating opportunities. According to the HIES -2000, the ultra poor stood at 20 percent of the population.

Insufficient food assistance programmes: There is a declining trend in public food distribution systems (PFDS) that would provide the poor with cash or kind to supplement their food acquisition capacity in order to enable them to have access to necessary food.

Utilisation of food including its nutritional value is another important component of food security. Important findings of various studies on utilisation of food, including utilisation at the household level, are as follows:

Intra-household food allocation: One important issue relating to access to and consumption of food is the distribution of food among the members of the households. Even though a household has enough food at its disposal, there is no guarantee that all individuals in that household have equal access to food. Conventional food intake pattern suggests that women and children have less access to food than adult male members.

Dietary imbalance: Dietary imbalance and unavailability of micronutrients are also among the major factors responsible for poor nutritional outcomes. High consumption of cereals, but low intake of edible oils, vegetables and fish result in a low level of absorption of micro-nutrients and a high level anemia and other deficiencies. Chantell Witten, country director of Helen Keller International informed the roundtable that "only four percent of the population here can afford optimum level of food and it means that 96 percent people cannot take food with adequate calorie intake." "The effects of extreme poverty fall mostly on women and children", says the July-2000 report of the Task Force on "Comprehensive Food Security Policy in Bangladesh."

Storage, processing and cooking practices affecting food utilisation: Quite often the available and accessed foods are not properly utilised due to loss of volume, quality and hence nutritional values from improper storage, processing and cooking practices. Loss of quantity and quality of grains under government storage is a very common phenomenon. Processing also greatly affects physical and chemical properties of food, having implications for quantity and quality of the available food consumed. Utilisation of food is also affected by cooking practices. Careless and excessive washing of food items before cooking often cause huge loss of food values. Also, too much of heating often impairs colour, flavour and nutritional value of food.

Experts, researchers and academics, economists and others have suggested, inter alia, the following steps for overcoming obstacles to food security at the national and household levels:

--Promoting food security by sustaining strong growth in domestic production of foodgrains and vegetables.

-- Arresting loss of "nearly 235 hectares of arable land every day for increased land usage for commercial, industrial and other purposes."

--Increasing production of non-food crops like fisheries and livestock.

-- Raising budgetary allocation for agriculture to the level of its contribution to the ADP.

--Raising incomes of the poor and their capacity to acquire food through employment generation.

-- Raising wages of labours employed in agriculture and industries including RMG.

--Identifying the vulnerable groups within households and design programmes to address their problem of access to food.

- Designing and implementing interventions to promote food security.

- Supporting safety nets for protection against natural disasters.

-- Improving cooking practices to protect nutritional value of food.

- Improving access to basic health facilities.

- Promoting partnership among the government, private sector and NGOs.

M. Abdul Latif Mondal is a former Secretary to the Government