According to the UN FAO latest research, number of people in Bangladesh with food insecurity worsened by pandemic raised significantly between 2018 -2020 from 2.4 to 5.2 per cent. The same report shows that approximately 31.9 percent of country’s population live at the edge of moderate to severe food security that is relatively lower comparing to the South Asia region.
The article also provides definitions of moderate and severe food insecurity, specifying former as uncertainty to procure foodstuffs and/or compelled to reduce both quantity and quality of consumed food, while latter defined as running out of food and consequently experiencing hunger with health risks.
The Daily Star article indicated two major reasons of the problem invoking Dhaka University’s chairman Mahbubul Mokaddem’s statement. He sees increase of food insecurity in the food production decrease, additionally consumers’ purchase power decreases with increasing of food prices he added.
Another reason the Chairman highlighted was growing income disparity between the rich and the poor. Approximately only 1 per cent of Bangladeshi in 2021 grasps 16.3 percent of the total national income while the bottom half 17.1 per cent making Bangladesh perfect example of poor and unequal country.
The full original article is here: https://www.thedailystar.net/news/bangladesh/news/52cr-people-food-insecure-bangladesh-2919161
