Food prices: Darker days ahead

Bangladeshis, especially people with limited income, are feeling the pinch of raging food inflation. And things are unlikely to get better anytime soon. As a matter of fact life is going to get tougher for the common people. Those in positions of power are not being able to be harbingers of an positive news for the future.

According to a recent agency report carried in this newspaper, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan expressed his fear that food prices may go up further. “Commodity price has been increasing due to the conflict. Russian-Ukraine is a food bank. Anyone who thinks food price will not go up, he or she is living in a fool’s paradise,” the minister said at a programme at Tejgaon Women’s College.

It must be admitted that the impact of the global food crisis has naturally affected Bangladesh. The price of food products in the country has increased rapidly due to the effect of the Ukraine-Russia war. Russia and Ukraine combined is considered the world’s bread baskets. Coupled with this are the domestic hoarders, who are ever ready to exploit excess profits by creating artificial crises by increasing stocks.

In Bangladesh, food is a basic right, as affirmed by the constitution of the country. However, a large number of people are still subject to food insecurity in this land of over 160 million people. According to the World Food Summit in 1996, food insecurity exists when there is not enough food available to meet the food demand; there is a lack of access to available food at all times, to all people, at affordable prices and when available food fails to meet safety and nutrition demands of the given population. The nation should brace itself for the impact of climate change that can increase the fragility of the food security situation. Taking this prospect agriculturists have urged the policymakers to remain ready for the future challenge through innovative and adaptive technologies to keep crop production increasing.

Still, as the population of the country keeps increasing, the necessity of greater food production cannot be overemphasized. It becomes easier for a country that achieves reliance in food to develop in different fields.

On achieving food security, Bangladesh must primarily focus on the production of grains including rice and wheat. Equal importance has to be put on increasing the production of protein sources such as beef, poultry, fish as well as pulses. Sometime back, a World Bank report surfaced in the media revealing the fact that stunted growth, as well as lack of quality education, is obstructing the materialization of the fullest growth of the country’s human capital.

India’s ban on beef export to Bangladesh has acted as a blessing for the country as this offered opportunity for the development of our own livestock sector. If the government consistently provides help to this sector which it ought to, the high price of beef will definitely come down.

The price of broiler chicken fluctuates in the market but overall this source of protein is not beyond the reach of the poor like the cultured fish varieties. Yet loan facility to the farmers of fish and chicken on easy terms can boost their production enhancing our food security. Policymakers should also pay attention to the country’s traditional sources of fish such as rivers, haor, baor, beels and ponds.

When media reports about rising food inflation, the numbers don’t tell how difficult the lives of financially poor people become with prices of food items increasing day by day.

But that doesn’t mean poor Bangladeshis, in particular, and others, in general, have found a magic wand to fight food inflation. In fact, mere survival continues to become more and more challenging for tens of millions — month after month and year after year. But is there anyone who cares about their lot.

Little wonder then that food inflation in Bangladesh remains higher than many Asian countries that too face the impact of international fuel and food commodity prices. 

The powers that be often find it convenient to blame international fuel and food commodity prices — and in our case the taka’s depreciation — for rising food inflation.