Home ›› 13 Sep 2022 ›› Editorial
Food is the first basic humanitarian right of humans. From time immemorial, the main interest of the state has been to ensure supplying of adequate, safe, and nutritious food. Social security and the political stability of a country are inextricably linked with food security. Although the concept of food security and its application has been started to be considered a national concern since the mid-1970s, the idea can be traced back to the Egyptian and Chinese civilizations about 10,000 years ago. Food security, as defined by the United Nations Committee on World Food Security, means that all people, at all times, have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their food preferences and dietary needs for an active and healthy life.
Complex scenario of global food security
Hunger, poverty, and food crisis are major threats to global food security. During the Cold War, the United States made the strategic decision to launch the Food for Peace program, which mostly provided food for its allies. A review of the World Food Program shows that in the 1960s, rich countries used food aid as a condition for development, and the period 1972-74 saw instability in food supply and prices in donor countries. However, Food production increased as a result of the Green Revolution in the 1980s.
Recently, the world is worried about the combined effect of the Corona pandemic and the Ukraine-Russia conflict. According to the World Food Program (WFP), the number of people facing severe food insecurity worldwide has more than doubled since 2019 to 340 million due to the coronavirus pandemic, conflict, and climate change. Now it is evident that given the complex geopolitical alignment, this number would increase in the coming days. The WFP has also warned that the world cannot afford to meet the huge economic challenges as more than 10 times more displacement worldwide happened as a result of climate change and conflict. The Middle East and North Africa, two regions that are dependent on imported food, have already faced the wider impact of these crises.
It is easily understandable that food security can be achieved in developed countries like Australia, Canada, the USA, or Western European countries because they are at the top in terms of land, other natural resources, financial capacity, high level of technology, and efficiency but lowest in terms of population growth rate. On the other hand, food availability is not sufficient in populous Asian countries including Bangladesh, in Africa where population growth is unstoppable, natural resources and capacity are very scarce, and technology and skills are low. Many people and children in these regions do not get two meals a day, so access to quality and nutritious food is a distant dream for them.
It is noted that one billion people still go without food every day while the world population will be 9 billion by 2050. According to WFP data, more than 16 million people around the world need food assistance. Now the question is - How can we achieve food security within the various constraints of this world along with the Pandemic, Conflict, and environmental disaster?
Food security strategy and challenges
There has been a revolution in agriculture in Bangladesh in the last three decades with the application of various modern techniques including biotechnology. Bangladesh has formulated a food policy that prioritizes adequate, safe, and nutritious food for all, especially women and children. Apart from this, steps have been taken to increase the subsidy in agriculture, making production materials cheap and easily available, ensuring a fair price of the product, and securing bank loans easier to increase domestic production. The government is procuring food grains every year from the domestic market to build up secure food stocks, focusing on agricultural research for innovation and expansion of new technologies, and funding crop diversification to increase productivity.
The development of salinity-tolerant crop varieties has created an opportunity to bring the vast coastal areas of the southern part of the country under rice cultivation. The cultivation and production of multiple crops and short-duration crop varieties have been increased through planned water drainage in the Haor area. Thus the area of agricultural land is expanded and productivity is increased.
However, population growth, land depletion, rapid urbanization, slow adoption of advanced technology, and the recurring devastating effects of climate change on agriculture are the main challenges to food security in Bangladesh. The cultivable land is shrinking by 69,000 acres every year while the population is growing at the rate of two million a year. In estimation, 35.4 per cent of people in Bangladesh are landless and 45.1 per cent own less than 0.05 acres of land.
Apart from this, decreasing soil fertility, increasing salinity, and reckless use of fertilizers are also posing challenges. Similarly, lack of climate-smart diversification, pollution of land, rivers, and water bodies by industrial waste, polythene, toxic fumes, lack of supply of quality seeds at affordable prices, and lack of land zoning for proper eco-friendly agriculture is also a significant barrier to desirable food production.
In recent days, we must acknowledge that the dehumanization of people due to greed for profit now adds another challenge to the concept of safe food.
Experts however believe that Bangladesh has immense opportunities to face the above challenges. Notable among these are the small and marginal farmers; large and relatively cheap labour force; established research and extension networks across the country. The country has medium-quality soil and a favourable climate where various crops can be grown throughout the year. There is scope for increased production of most crops/fish/livestock through innovative variety development and modern technology deployment packages. Groundwater sources for irrigation; the large domestic market for food consumption, and export opportunities abroad have been motivating educated entrepreneurs for investing in agriculture. Private companies are also investing in the commercialization of agriculture, especially in the value addition of products.
Based on the challenges and opportunities mentioned above, to ensure sustainable food security, the researcher suggests increasing the current yield from 4.12 tonnes to 5.12 tonnes per hectare, reducing the area under Boro rice by 25 per cent, and shifting those lands to oilseeds, maize, fruits, vegetables, pulses, and high-value crops cultivation and animal husbandry. In addition to improving soil fertility both organically and inorganically, steps should be taken to reduce yield gaps in staple crop/fishery/livestock production, introduce ‘Good Agricultural Practices’ from farm to table; minimize post-harvest losses and food waste at all levels. A favourable trade policy, easy and cheap credit system and insurance facility for small farms also need to be ensured.
Ensuring fair price of farmers’ produce, market management, post-harvest loss reduction and value addition, easy credit for all categories of farmers, biological weed control, crop diversification, manpower capacity building, institutional capacity building, farm insurance, etc. are also the food security provisions of Bangladesh.
From a broader perspective, the world must understand that poverty alleviation is closely related to food security. That’s why governments across the world need to join hands to work for food security and raise voices so that hunger cannot be used as a tool of war. They must not forget the United Nations Security Council resolution No. 2417 where the use of starvation as an instrument of war was unanimously condemned and the importance of ensuring access to food in times of conflict under international humanitarian law is reaffirmed.
The writer specialises on strategic affairs. He can be contacted at kamalmazumderju@gmail.com
