National Food Policy 2006

The NFP 2006, hereinafter referred to as the Policy, has six sections. An attempt has been made below to analyze the salient points of the Policy.

The preamble of the Policy stresses that food plays a crucial role in the agro-based economy of Bangladesh, and recognizes that a large portion of the income of the population is allocated to food. It may be relevant to mention here that, according to the Preliminary Report on Household Income & Expenditure Survey (HIES)-2005, the share of food expenditure as percentage of consumption at national level is 53.81 percent. This stands at 58.54 percent in rural areas and 45.17 percent in urban areas.

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The Policy recognizes that although the production of food grains (rice and wheat) has more than doubled since independence in 1971, food security at national, household and individual levels remain a matter of major concern. It poses a big question as to what extent it will be possible to fulfill the government target, as stated in the Policy, for reducing the number of poor people of the country to half by the year 2015 in accordance with the Millennium Development Goals (2000), taking the ground realities into consideration.

PRSP has admitted that approximately half of the population lacks the resources to acquire enough food, and consequently remains below the poverty line. This means that in spite of a poverty reduction rate of around one percentage point a year since the early nineties, the total number of poor people has increased compared to the early nineties. Available data show that 60 million people in the country are now living below the poverty line.

As regards its goals and objectives, the Policy states that its goal is to ensure dependable sustained food security for all people of the country at all times. The objectives are: (1) to ensure adequate and stable supply of safe and nutritious food; (2) to enhance purchasing power of the people for increased food accessibility; and (3) to ensure adequate nutrition for all (particularly for women and children).

In order to implement the above stated goals and objectives, the Policy has suggested certain strategies which include: (a) sustained increase in domestic food production; (b) agricultural research and extension: (c) effective use of water resources; (d) agricultural diversification and improved agricultural technology; (e) promotion of non-food crops (vegetables, oil seeds, pulses and fruits) and development of poultry, livestock and fisheries; (f) improvement of food markets including market infrastructure development; (g) strengthening of liberal credit for food trade; (h) development of trade-supportive legal and regulatory environment; (i) price incentives for domestic food production; (j) consumers' price support (open market sale, essential priorities, other priorities, large employment industries ltd.); (k) supply food grains through targeted food programs to the poor; (l) increased purchasing power and access to food by the people; (m) transitory stock management; (n) special measures for disaster mitigation for agriculture; (o) government food grain stock and emergency distribution from there; (p) measures for increased supply through private trade and stock; (q) employment-generating income growth; (r) financial incentives for agro-based industries; (s) special support for expansion of rural industry; (t) education, skill and human resource development; (u) adoption of macro policy for broad-based labour intensive growth;(v) long term national plan for ensuring balanced food in building a healthy nation; (w) supply of sufficient nutritious food for vulnerable groups;(x) balanced diet containing adequate micronutrients; (y) safe drinking water and improved sanitation; and (z) safe and quality food supply.

There cannot be two opinions about the good intentions expressed in the goals/objectives and strategies for implementation of the Policy. But the recent trends tend to indicate that attainment of the goals and objectives through implementation of the stated strategies will not be an easy task in the prevailing not so favourable situation.

In this connection, the lack of sustained growth in food grain production in recent years to keep pace with annual population growth it can be mentioned. Food grain production during the past six years i.e. in 2000-01, 2001-02, 2002-03, 2003-04, 2004-05 and 2005-06 stood at 267.58 lakh tons, 259.05 lakh tons, 266.94 lakh tons, 274.42 lakh tons, 261.33 lakh tons and 275.90 lakh tons respectively against the total population of 129 million, 131 million, 133 million, 135 million, 137 million, and 139 million against the corresponding years.

Unsatisfactory progress in agricultural research due to paucity of funds (so far, allocation of funds for agricultural research has been 0.5 percent of agricultural GDP against the internationally recommended allocation of at least 1.0 percent of agricultural GDP); low coverage of cultivable land under irrigation (at present 32 percent or so of the total cultivable land is under irrigation); unsatisfactory progress in the production of non-food crops (vegetables, oil seeds, pulses and fruits) and other food items (poultry, livestock and fisheries) to meet the need of the growing population; loss of agricultural land (the country is losing about 80 thousand hectares of land annually due to rapid growth in urbanization, industrialization and other development activities); decrease in income of poor households, particularly in rural households (Poverty Monitoring Survey 2004 of the BBS reveals that in the rural areas household income for the poor decreased in 2004 from Tk 3,006 in 1999 to Tk 2,786); incapability of the ultra-poor (the destitute, sick, old and infirm), comprising 20 percent of the poor living below the poverty line, to participate in income generating activities; inadequate food safety net programs; lack of easy access to agricultural credit; maintaining insufficient government security food stocks to meet emergencies; high rate of joblessness, particularly among the educated youths; irrationality in intra-house food allocation; unsatisfactory access to sanitation (29 percent in rural areas and 56 percent in urban areas); and large scale adulteration of all varieties of food can also be mentioned.

To conclude, adoption of the NFP-2006 is not enough. The credit lies in the implementation of it goals and objectives. The implementation of the Policy will depend on a number of factors which include, inter alia, strong political will of the next elected government(s), a stable political atmosphere, macro-economic stability, strengthening the concerned activities of various ministries, departments and agencies of the government involved in the implementation of the Policy, providing adequate subsidy to agricultural inputs (available information suggests that farmers in Switzerland are now given 69 percent subsidy to produce crops worth one US dollar, in the USA the amount is 45 cents, and in EU countries 35 percent), preventing loss of agricultural land, favourable weather condition, and assistance from development partners.

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