Households in Bangladesh depending on agriculture as main source of income face moderate to severe risk of food insecurity despite being directly involved in food production, according to a recent survey.
One in every four households, or 26.13 percent, that rely on agriculture for their income face food insecurity, the latest report of Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) shows.
The "Food Security Statistics 2023" survey, which was the first of its kind in Bangladesh, was conducted among 29,760 homes across the country in June last year.
The high prevalence of food insecurity at moderate levels can be considered a predictor of various forms of diet-related health conditions resulting from micronutrient deficiencies, as BBS report shows.
Additionally, about 0.95 percent of the farming families are in extreme food crisis or acute insecurity. It also found food insecurity was lower among those receiving remittance from family members.
Overall, 19.09 percent of those employed by industrial sector endured moderate to severe food insecurity while 20.32 percent of service sector workers faced the same.
The survey comes at a time when inflation remains elevated, leaving low-income and limited-income groups to struggle to make ends meet.
The state-run statistical agency measured the varying degrees of food security across Bangladesh based on the answers to eight types of questions in the survey.
The questions were whether participants went without eating for a whole day, skipped a meal, ran out of food at home, ate less than they should, ate healthy and nutritious food, or were worried about not having enough food to eat.
"Access to food for agricultural labour is very limited even though they are involved in producing food," said Md Asaduzzaman, former research director of Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies.
The number of food insecure people would have been even higher had the survey accounted for landless farmers. "Their situation is even worse than that of rickshaw-pullers as they don earn money regularly," the economist said.
Against this backdrop, he urged for the adoption of more agricultural labour-intensive social safety net programmes.
Abdul Halim, BBS project director of survey, said they only took into account agricultural households that own at least five decimals of land and members of labour force that they employ.
As per the final report on Population and Household Census-2022, Bangladeshs total population stands at 16.98 crore, spread over about 4.1 crore households.
In terms of overall population, around 3.77 crore, or 22 percent, of the population experienced moderate to severe food insecurity in 2023, the survey showed.
