Food and Nutrition Security in Post-pandemic Bangladesh

DR. M. ASADUZZAMAN Economist Former Research Director Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, Dhaka

Introduction

Satyendranath Dutta, a renowned poet of Bengal, wrote a famous poem extolling resilience of Bangalees one line of which reads “monontorey morina amara, mari niye ghor kori” (famine can not destroy us and we cohabit with pandemic). Now that a mari in the form of Covid-19 pandemic is already here and a second wave has already engulfed many countries, including Bangladesh, a monnontar or famine like situation may arise here, if adequate preventive measures are not taken right now. Food security may be under a major threat, particularly when the country has been aspiring to graduate to a low middle income country in a year’s time.

here does not allow us to go into the details, but suffice it to say that unless adequate measures in terms of policy and actions are taken whole-heartedly by the government and the people together, there will be major shortfalls in food production, if not widespread hunger, due to both climate change and climatic shocks in the form of various disasters, such as floods and flash flood, drought, sea-level rise and salinity increase, cyclonic storms as well as fall in human productivity due to major health impairment and rising mortality.

Strategic directions for the future

Bangladesh’s annual growth rate has faltered from the past year, which was about 8 per cent. The pandemic has already led to the loss of employment and income for many and thus their food and nutrition security are under a major threat. For the FNS to be maintained, and improved further, in the post-pandemic period, the systemic and structural weaknesses have to be appropriately managed. In that case, scientific evidence and technology must be the major weapons. However, the people’s whole-hearted cooperation would be crucial in meeting the challenge, which means they have to be provided with enough economic and other incentives. One particular problem that needs to be attended to right now is the that of overuse and wastage of water and consequent creeping water shortage. Science and technology for conservation of water exist and are well-known. Yet this has not happened due to lack of appropriate incentives to farmers and a sense of complacency on part of the policy makers. It may be noted that in some countries, water futures market already exists to manage the shortage that they are facing.A major structural solution is to develop a fair agricultural marketing and supply chain system so that farmers get fair compensation for their production efforts. Besides, the climate impact issues would require to be addressed effectively, which is missing at the moment. The war against nature, be it COVID or climate change, has to be on its terms, following the laws of nature. Moreover, there is no scope for compromising over the social issues, such as women’s agency, for the outcome is not simply beneficial to only women, but to the whole society and over future generations.