Home ›› 04 Dec 2021 ›› Front
An optimum production of food over the years has lived up to the demand for feeding the entire population as the country is breaking its own record in terms of crops, fish and meat production.
Bangladesh is now a food-surplus country, with the rice production rising by around four times to 38.7 million metric tons in 2020-2021 from 10.8 million metric tons in 1970-71.
According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the present requirement of staple food (rice) is about 35.3 million metric tons taking 1.2 million Rohingya refugees into account.
On November 29, 2021, Agriculture Minister Abdur Razzak in a session of International Investment Summit said: “The country is self-sufficient in food production since 2015. Our present target is ensuring nutritious and quality food.”
“To make quality and nutritious food available, we are trying to increase people’s and farmers’ income so that both can get a win-win situation.”
The minister, however, admitted that people’s purchase capacity is low in line with their falling income.
The average price of coarse rice rose by 10.89 per cent in retail and 10 per cent in wholesale market in the last fiscal.
Bangladesh ranks 99th among 113 countries in quality and safe food category. It stands 76th among 116 countries in the Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2021. The neighbouring India ranks 71th followed by Myanmar which ranks 72nd, Pakistan 75th, Sri Lanka 77th and Nepal 79th. Experts said wealth and income gap between the poor and the rich make it harder to afford quality and safe food.
Despite the production of surplus food, people sometimes fail to buy food from the market due to high price.
Sharing his take on the issue with The Business Post, former research director M Asaduzzaman said: “A farmer does not produce all the food items he needs every day. They produce three to four times more at present compared to what was evident in 1970s but are not becoming solvent due to limited market excess and the omnipresence of middlemen between farmland and marketplace.”
“They receive three times less price than that of the market price for their products,” he viewed.
“Around 50 percent of our population is farmer. There is a high price in the market but low price in the farmers’ end. The price gap is pulling down the affordability of the growers.”
Hence, food adulteration and food contamination are also a big concern since adulterated food items tell upon public health.
Food production scenario
The country has 169 million people. Rice production rose by around four times to 38.7 million metric tons in FY21. The present requirement of rice is about 35.3 million metric tons.
Similarly, potato production rose almost 13 times while maize 1900 times and wheat 10 times in the last 50 years.
The country ranks second in jackfruit, third in open water fishing and vegetable cultivation, fourth in rice production and Tilapia fish production, fifth in fresh water fish farming, sixth in potato production and eighth in mango and guava production.
Food intake scenario
Per capita calorie intake has reduced despite the drop of poverty to 22 per cent in 2021 from 31.5 per cent in 2010. The daily per capita calorie intake in Bangladesh averaged almost 2,100 (kilo)calories in the 1960s but fell to 1,840 in 1972 following the war of independence in 1971, and only by 1987 did it reach 2,000 again, according to The Journal of Development Studies.
According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) Survey 2016, the per-capita calorie intake dropped to 2210.4 Kcal a day in 2016 from 2318.3 Kcal in 2010 in the country.
The household expenditure on food increased to Tk 7,354 in 2016 from Tk 6,031 for 2010. The Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) 2016 by the BBS suggests that the falling trend in rice intake may have led to lower calorie intake, however, statistics does not support it.
In 2020-21, per-capita rice consumption will be 181.3kg per year which will be the highest in Asia, according to the UN’s specialised agency report titled “The Food Outlook” while the amount was 179.9kg per year during 2016-19.
However, according to the USAID, 70 per cent of the diet is comprised of cereals.
Food storage capacity and distribution
According to the food ministry, currently, the government food storage capacity is 22 lakh metric tons, and plans to extend the capacity to 30 lakh metric tons by 2025.
Till November 28, there were 15.13 lakh metric tons in food stock. Of them, 12.29 lakh metric tons were rice, 2.84 lakh metric tons were wheat and 10,000 metric tons were paddy.
The government distributes 15.60 lakh metric tons of food grains at a lower price against various programmes, and 7.84 lakh metric tons as relief.
A total of 22.89 lakh metric tons of food grains have been distributed in FY2020-2021. In the last fiscal, the national average inflation rate was 5.56 per cent. The food ministry claims that 4-5kg rice could be bought against the wage of a one-day labour in Fiscal Year 2005-6. The purchase capacity went up to 11kg in 2018.
