The study is based on secondary data. The required data have been collected from secondary sources such as books, reports, journal articles, publication, newspaper and online sources. The collected data have been analyzed through mathematical and statistical techniques.
4. State of Food Security in Bangladesh Being a country of 160 million population with only a per capita income of US$ 1090, achieving food security is a core challenge for Bangladesh. Academically food security is defined as availability of food in market, physical and economic access of the people to the required amount of food from the viewpoint of healthy nutrition. However, economic accessibility to food is directly linked with the purchasing power of the people. It means, food availability in the market has no significance for food security for the people if they do not have the purchasing power to access to food. Therefore, food prices must be reasonable for achieving food security. That means, food security is actually related with sufficient income. Poverty identical with unemployment and lower-income is the most important cause of food security. Hence, poverty alleviation is the only way to ensure sustainable food security. Food security at national level requires ensuring an adequate supply of food to market. The solution may be the increase in domestic production and/or importing food to meet the total requirement of the population. Food security at the household level needs the establishment of an economic system that ensures equitable and justified income distribution. Poverty could be only alleviated if the general people have the access to the required amount of food through their own income.
4.1 Availability of Food in Bangladesh Availability of food is determined by domestic production, external trade and the efficiency of distribution through market and other channels. Bangladesh has made steady progress in the expansion of domestic food production. Net food grain production increased from less than 10.0 million tons in the early 1970s to more than 30.0 million tons in fiscal year 2012-13 (BBS, 2013). This growth in production has been achieved through the expansion of irrigation facilities, spread of modern varieties and increase in cropping intensity (Talukder, 2005). In addition to domestic production, Bangladesh import a substantial amount of food and used to receive food aid from abroad. The total amount food production, imports and aid of Bangladesh over the years are discussed in this section.
4.1.1 Production of Food in Bangladesh Domestic production of food in any country is important to ensure food security. Investment in agriculture increases the production of food which helps the country to make secure in food. Though production of food grain depends greatly on good harvest years, Bangladesh demonstrates a steady increase in the production of food grain since its independence. The production has increased from 11 million metric ton in the 1970s to more than 35 million metric tons in recent years. Rice, wheat, potato, maize, vegetables, oil seeds, pulse, sugarcane etc are main food crops in Bangladesh. The production pattern of different food crops of the country are analyzed below.
(i) Rice Production in Bangladesh Rice is the staple food of about 135 million people of Bangladesh. Rice sector provides nearly 48% of rural employment, about two-third of total calorie supply and about one-half of the total protein intakes of an average person in the country. Rice sector contributes one-half of the agricultural GDP and one-sixth of the national income in Bangladesh. Almost all of the 13 million farm families of the country grow rice. Rice is grown on about 10.5 million hectares which has remained almost stable over the past three decades. About 75% of the total cropped area and over 80% of the total irrigated area is planted to rice. Thus, rice plays a vital role in the livelihood of the people of Bangladesh (BRRI, 11). In Bangladesh, food security is strongly linked with the production, import and price stability of rice. Every people of the country consume about 400 grams of rice per day on average.
(ii) Wheat Production in Bangladesh The second staple food of the people of Bangladesh is wheat. The production of wheat has been declined from 1475 thousand metric tons in FY 1987-88 to 1260 thousand metric tons in 2013 (USDA, 2012). Besides production, Bangladesh is used to receiving a substantial amount of wheat as food aid from developed countries. Commercial import of wheat has, however, increased despite growth in domestic production. The import has recently exceeded 3 million tones. It appears that although Bangladesh has achieved self-sufficiency in rice production, the country is not yet self-sufficient in wheat production.
(iii) Production of others Food Item in Bangladesh Besides producing rice and wheat Bangladesh produces some others food crops and food items such as potato, maize, barley, pulse, oil seeds, vegetables, spices, fish, meat, milk, egg, fruits and sugar etc. The production of others food items is shown in Table 2. From Table 2 it is found that the production of potato increased from 39.08 thousand metric tons in 2004 to 82.05 thousand metric tons in 2012 and the production of maize increased to 19.54 thousand metric tons in 2012 from only 2.41 metric tons in 2004.