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6 years ago

Food security in the face of climate change

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So far as food security is concerned, 2017 must be a year of soul-searching for the country's planners. After years of self-sufficiency in food grains, Bangladesh had to drain out hard-earned foreign currencies this year to import a large amount of food grains, especially rice and wheat to meet domestic needs. This was because the country lost nearly one million tones of paddy due to sudden flash floods that our food planners could not foresee despite having a full-fledged modern, scientific monitoring department.  

It is against this backdrop that Bangladesh has decided to import additional 200,000 tones of rice and wheat. The Cabinet Committee on Government Purchase endorsed the proposals at a recent meeting chaired by Finance Minister AMA Muhith. The government will buy 150,000 tones of non-Basmati boiled rice. The import will cost Bangladesh around Tk 5.49 billion at the rate of $440 per tonne. The government will also buy 50,000 tonnes of wheat from Singapore's Resington Enterprise Limited following an international quotation. The price will be around Tk 1.02 billion at $245.35 per tonne.

Bangladesh is importing food grains and easing import conditions after two spells of floods devastated crops on hundreds of thousands of farmland, raising fear of a food crisis in April. Prices of rice, the staple food grain in Bangladesh, have since been multiplying. The government has decided to import 2.0 million tonnes of rice and wheat in current fiscal to refill the stock. The Finance Minister has urged the country's agricultural scientists to innovate high-yielding varieties of rice so as to meet shortages due to impact of climate change. 

True, in an overpopulated country like ours, emphasis needs to be put on food security through more domestic production taking care of hostile climate change. On the other hand, global food availability might be vulnerable owing to climatic changes. Bangladesh did well in food security as it achieved self-sufficiency in rice. Bangladesh has made a healthy progress in producing rice, tripling production from 11 million tonnes in 1971 to 33 million in 2012. The per capita rice production has increased substantially over the level at independence. The growth of production was achieved by fast adoption by farmers of higher yielding crop varieties developed by scientists, supported by rapid expansion of irrigation infrastructure through private investment in tube-wells.

Bangladesh has made significant progress in production of potatoes and vegetables. The growth has been particularly impressive in the last decade. The major problem faced by potato and vegetable production is the volatility in prices leading to large year-to-year fluctuations in production. The production of most other food crops - pulses, oilseed and sugarcane - has either remained stagnant or declined. The production of oilseeds has picked up in recent years due to favourable prices, progress in the development of higher yielding varieties, and identification of favourable agro-ecological niche.

The country in fact faces the main challenge to food security from continuing growth of population. The progress in reducing population growth, from 3.0 per cent per year at independence to about 1.2 per cent now, is laudable. But there are indications that the progress made in fertility reduction has slowed down in recent years. In Chittagong and Sylhet divisions the fertility rate is still higher than three, while the national average is 2.3, and it is less than two in Khulna Division. Strong traditional norms and socio-cultural conditions contribute to low acceptance of family planning that will not be easy to overcome, said noted farm scientist Dr Mahabub Hossain.

Bangladesh's population is still increasing by 1.8 million every year and that is why rice production has to increase by 0.4 million tons every year to meet the need for staple food for the growing population. The increase in domestic production at that rate would be difficult due to several supply side factors. On the other hand, the arable land has been shrinking by 0.6 per cent every year due to demand from housing and industries, and infrastructure, as well as loss of land from river erosion. With global warming and climate change, another one-sixth of the land may be submerged under brackish water due to rising sea levels with adverse impact on soil salinity. 

The on-going climate has made the monsoon more erratic raising risks in sustaining the growth in food production. Soil fertility has been declining due to overexploitation of soil nutrients, and unbalanced use of fertilisers. The ground water aquifer has been going down due to over-mining for irrigation for rice (boro rice) production in the dry season. Boro has been the predominant source of growth of rice production over the last two decades. Due to all these factors the potential for further increase in production is getting limited.

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