Food consumption expenditure pattern of urban households in Bangladesh

Conclusion

Bangladesh, both an agrarian and a very densely populated country, shows a chronical food deficit. The average food-grain import almost equals the quantity of grain required for its total urban population. The country's population grows faster than food production increases. The urban population is growing even faster. It also has a) comparatively higher average per capita income, b) stronger male dominance in sex ratio, and c) higher ratio of young adults. These and other social factors create a somewhat different demand for food in the city. Already there are signs that providing food for the city is becoming a serious problem for Bangladesh. Although much of the food grains and edible oils for the city population are supplied through imports, the many other food items are generally supplied from home production. With fast urbanization and slow growth in farm production, the demand-supply gap in food for the city is getting wider and increasingly critical. Such essential food items as meat, fish, pulses, and even onions and spices are often in seriously short supply. This situation has necessitated a new market management system. For the first time, the public sector has entered into daily food supply and marketing operations. Its previous experience had been with provision of cereals, sugar, and edible oils, through a rationing system originally introduced during the Bengal famine of 1943. To maintain a steady supply of perishable food items, the government must also have its own production units. It has already started a few dairy farms, agricultural estates, fish ponds, and backyard poultry farms in and around the large cities. The government has also approved a scheme called “Green Belt Around the Cities” encouraging agricultural, horticultural, and vegetable gardening activities around the urban fringe. These attempts are still at a pilot stage and need to be replicated on a large scale. Moreover, the government on its own at best can supplement only marginally the traditional informal sector in production and supply of the cities' food. For example, in spite of its much publicized and fairly successful fish supply program in Metropolitan Dacca, the public sector only supplies 10 % of that city's daily fish requirements. The government must take up programs to help traditional small-scale farmers (especially those who farm the urban fringes) in cultivating food oriented to urban market needs. Better technology and inputs should be extended to the farmers. Special financing schemes and marketing systems could be developed to assist the farmers. The private sector should be mobilized properly for production of food for the city market. Such programs will essentially require consideration of integrated metropolitan and urban-regional land use planning and management.

Finally, food and nutrient intakes are quite related to income. Unless income of the lower economic groups can be sufficiently raised, income inequalities reasonably reduced, and unless a food policy sensitive to human consumption needs can be adopted and truly implemented, most people in a class-structured poor country like Bangladesh will remain undernourished and malnourished, both in villages and in cities.