What Steps Are Being Taken to Ensure Food Security? Food security is very much dependent on supplies from the agricultural sector, as this ensures food availability. The government’s attempt to subsidize farm machinery to help farmers harvest agricultural produce in a timely manner was useful. With proper attempts made by the ministry of agriculture and the field-level agriculture extension workers, farmers were close to success in harvesting and marketing enough rice and other agricultural products. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, there are sufficient cereals and other food products stored in the country, which is a good sign for food security.
If we reflect on the access dimension of food security, the government took some commendable steps to solve the problem temporarily. Although the planning was done before the pandemic hit Bangladesh, the steps were improvised during the COVID-19 crisis. Through its local administration, the government provided food and assistance to poor people. It is estimated that more than 5 million ultrapoor people got support from this initiative. The government requested that the rich people in society help the needy people, and a lot of rich people responded to this urge and helped needy people by providing food and essentials. Further, the government has taken a hardline stance to control prices in the food market so that people can buy necessary foods for a fair price. The government also launched a web portal, named Food for Nation,1 which was created solely to deal with food supply and customer access. The website is the first of its kind in Bangladesh, creating an open, web-based agricultural marketplace and making a direct connection between producer and customer. Besides this, another web portal, named Corona Info,2 also provides services related to food relief. The government listed all of the contact numbers for online food delivery services and essential food suppliers in this web portal so that people can easily access them. Another admirable attempt at increasing food security, through Corona Info, was opening a simple online application system for food relief where poor people, or their neighbors on their behalf, can request emergency food supplies. However, it is unclear whether online platforms are helping the food security cause in Bangladesh, as most of the needy and food-insecure people are not able to connect with such platforms.
Nonetheless, these attempts are praiseworthy for increasing people’s food access. The government is trying, furthermore, to influence people to consume diversified foods, such as milk, eggs, rice, oil, and meat, as these products are in surplus production inside the country. The government likewise tried to include these products in its food relief program, which is an indication that it is attempting to promote proper food utilization and nutrition. However, it is clear from reports that not everyone, and particularly not poor people, are guaranteed to get food. When there is no surety of food, which is especially the case during the pandemic, it is expected that many people will not have proper food utilization nor nutrition.
Moreover, Bangladesh has experienced some hiccups in efforts at food stability. At the very beginning of the lockdowns, we observed an upsurge in the purchase of essential goods, and food products were the main target for people. Before announcing the lockdown, the government failed to plan how people would lead their lives under these new guidelines, and this is reflected in the price hikes and the frequency that essential food products were out of stock at the beginning of the pandemic. After the lockdown was put in place, the poor bore the brunt of the hardship; daily wage laborers, in particular, suffered, given that their income source was gone. These people are always at risk for food insecurity, and the pandemic further exacerbates their situation. This exemplifies that the government’s system to maintain food stability is flawed.