Bangladesh Agricultural Policy Activity

× Feed the Future seeks to sustainably reduce global poverty, hunger, and malnutrition by helping partner countries boost agriculture-led growth, resilience, and nutrition. Program efforts are designed to impact the population in Zones of Influence (ZOI) in Feed the Future target countries. The ZOI is the targeted sub-national regions and districts where the program intends to achieve the greatest household- and individual-level impacts on poverty, hunger, and malnutrition. Progress in achieving Feed the Future’s objectives is tracked using population-based performance indicators collected at baseline then periodically thereafter.
The purpose of the Bangladesh Feed the Future Phase 2 ZOI 2018/2019 Baseline Survey, referred to as the Feed the Future Bangladesh ZOI Baseline Survey 2018/2019 throughout this report, is to provide the U.S. Government interagency partners, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Bureau for Resilience and Food Security (RFS), USAID/Bangladesh, the Government of Bangladesh, and development partners with information on the current status of the Feed the Future ZOI-level population-based survey indicators.

× Background: Tracking dietary changes can inform strategies to improve nutrition, yet there is limited evidence on food consumption patterns and how disparities in food and nutrient intakes have changed in Bangladesh. Objectives: We assessed trends and adequacies in energy and macronutrient intakes and evaluated changes in inequities by age group, sex, and expenditure quintile. Methods: We used panel data from the 2011 and 2018 Bangladesh Integrated Household Survey (n = 20,339 and 19,818 household members ≥ 2 years, respectively). Dietary intakes were collected using 24-hour recall and food-weighing methods. Changes in energy and macronutrient intakes were assessed using generalized linear models and adjusted Wald tests. Inequities in outcomes were examined by age group, sex, and expenditure quintile using the Slope Index of Inequality and Concentration Index.

× On September 18, 2020, USAID requested IFPRI to conduct 15 stakeholder consultations on three thematic areas across five districts in the Feed the Future Zone of Influence (ZOI) and Zone of Resilience (ZOR): Barishal, Cox’s Bazar, Dhaka, Jashore, and Khulna. The thematic areas are: (1) Increased Access to Finance, (2) Commercialization of Oilseeds and Pulses, and (3) Commercialization of Agricultural Research and Biotechnology. IFPRI agreed to conduct these stakeholder consultations and, on October 21, 2020, USAID approved IFPRI’s Commercialization of Oilseeds and Pulses concept note.

× From December 6-10, 2020, USAID organized and IFPRI facilitated five virtual stakeholder consultation workshops on agricultural research and biotechnology, bringing together relevant stakeholders involved in crop and non-crop agriculture from Barishal, Cox’s Bazar, Dhaka, Jashore, and Khulna districts in southern Bangladesh. This format aimed to capture the views and perceptions of a range of relevant actors on the status, opportunities and challenges, and recommendations for improving agricultural research and biotechnology. This report presents the subjective views of participants who are affected by and have a stake in these discussions, from value chain actors who have had challenges cultivating certain varieties and raising certain breeds due to climate-related challenges to researchers who are developing new varieties and breeds accounting for these ground-level challenges. Although the authors have substantiated parts of this report with primary and secondary data sources, the major thrust of this report is to communicate perspectives as they were framed during the workshops. Although stakeholder responses reflect varying knowledge levels of biotechnology among participants, some of which may be convoluted or inaccurate, this report preserves the diversity of stakeholder input as an honest reflection of the opinions received.

× Securing Food for All in Bangladesh presents an array of research that collectively addresses four broad issues: (1) agricultural technology adoption; (2) input use and agricultural productivity; (3) food security and output markets; and (4) poverty, food security, and women’s empowerment. The fifteen chapters of the book address diverse aspects within these four themes.

× Food is the most important basic need for sustenance and survival, and the right to food is among the fundamental human rights. Access to sufficient food at all times to meet dietary needs of millions of people in Bangladesh is a matter of critical importance and should be an issue of paramount concern to those responsible for the nation’s welfare. According to Article 15 (a) of the Constitution of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, it is a principal responsibility of the State to meet the basic food needs of all citizens. Furthermore, Article 18(1) of the Constitution has made the improvement of the nutritional status of the people and the improvement of public health, the primary responsibilities of the state.
This book assembles a set of papers that collectively focus on the extensive undertaking of securing food for all in Bangladesh. The book addresses four broad issues: (1) agricultural technology adoption; (2) input use and agricultural productivity; (3) food security and output market; and (4) poverty, food security and women’s empowerment. The chapters, fifteen in total, address diverse aspects within these four themes.

× We use pre-pandemic (2018-2019) data from the Bangladesh Integrated Household Survey (BIHS), together with three rounds of data collected by telephone in June 2020, January 2021, and September-October 2021, to understand changes in food security over time in a representative sample of rural Bangladeshi households.
• With the onset of the pandemic, combined with the lockdown restrictions imposed from March through May 2020, moderate and severe food insecurity tripled to 45 percent. This was likely driven by income losses and difficulties accessing food because of shop closures.
• By January 2021, the proportion of moderately or severely food insecure households had largely returned to pre-pandemic levels. The September-October 2021 survey showed no meaningful further change in the prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity despite the strict national lockdown imposed in July-August 2021.
• A different picture emerges when we include the prevalence of mild food insecurity. The proportion of households reporting any food insecurity (mild, moderate or severe) increased from the pre-pandemic average of 45.7 percent to 87.8 percent in June 2020, before declining to 70.9 percent in January 2021 and 68 percent in September-October 2021. Dimensions of food insecurity that include consuming less diverse diets, being unable to eat healthy/nutritious food, and above all, being worried about not having enough food increased dramatically at the start of the pandemic and have remained elevated.
• Pre-pandemic, the majority of rural households in our sample were fully food secure; 18 months after the onset of the pandemic only 32 percent report no forms of food insecurity.
• In the immediate months after the outbreak (June 2020), many rural households coped by reducing expenditures on non-food goods, electricity and other utilities, and health-related items. The use of these forms of coping mechanisms has subsequently declined. However, the proportion of rural households that purchased food on credit (69 percent in June 2020) has barely changed and in all surveys fielded since the start of the pandemic, more than half of surveyed households have borrowed money to buy food. The continued use of savings and the ongoing use of credit to purchase food is consistent with the elevated levels of worry about not having enough food.
• A substantial share of rural households reported receiving cash or in-kind safety net support during the pandemic, mostly from government sources.
• Continued and expanded support from safety nets may be important, as many rural households face ongoing food insecurity and are using unsustainable coping strategies.

× Summary
• The Transfer Modality Research Initiative (TMRI) was a pilot transfer program implemented in rural Bangladesh from 2012-2014, following a randomized controlled trial (RCT) design. TMRI provided either cash transfers or food transfers, with or without nutrition behavior change communication (BCC), to ultra-poor women and their family members in two regions of rural Bangladesh.
• The nutrition BCC entailed intensive weekly group-based nutrition training, home visits, and community meetings focused on infant and young child feeding and encouraged home production of nutritious foods.
• We conducted a phone survey in November 2021 to re-interview a subset of the households that participated in TMRI from 2012-2014. We aimed to assess any differences in how they were faring shortly after the devastating third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh.
• We find that attrition in our phone survey is low relative to the intended sample, and not correlated with treatment. This allows us to assume that differences across the treatment and control arms in November 2021 are causal differences – that is, persistent effects of the different treatment arms implemented seven years earlier.
• Overall, we find that households that received a combination of cash transfers and intensive nutrition BCC from 2012-2014 fare significantly better in November 2021 than those in the control group or the other arms, although they nonetheless struggle in many dimensions.
• In November 2021, compared with the control group, former Cash+BCC households report experiencing significantly lower prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity, report a more diverse diet (being significantly more likely to consume eggs, dairy, and fruit in the previous seven days), report a slightly smaller share of main earners being unemployed, and report experiencing significantly less stress.
• Our findings suggest that providing poor rural households in Bangladesh with sizable cash transfers of long duration alongside intensive complementary programming, such as nutrition BCC, may help them cope with future shocks. Thus, such programming may be a cost-effective strategy to reduce households’ immediate and future food and nutrition insecurity.

× Feed the Future seeks to sustainably reduce global poverty, hunger, and malnutrition by helping partner countries boost agriculture-led growth, resilience, and nutrition. Program efforts are designed to impact the population in Zones of Influence (ZOI) in Feed the Future target countries. Progress in achieving Feed the Future’s objectives is tracked using population-based performance indicators collected at baseline then periodically thereafter.
The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) produced this report for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Bureau for Resilience and Food Security (RFS), USAID/Bangladesh, the Government of Bangladesh, and development partners. The report compares indicator estimates and select demographic and household characteristics from the 2018/2019 ZOI Survey, which serves as the Feed the Future Phase One endline survey, with the baseline assessment conducted in 2011/2012 in Bangladesh. This report only includes the Feed the Future Phase One indicators. Secondary data sources are used when needed or appropriate.
The Feed the Future Phase One ZOI in Bangladesh includes mostly rural areas in 20 districts consisting of 120 upazilas (sub-districts) in three divisions in the south and southwest region of the country.
This assessment provides information about progress on Feed the Future Phase One ZOI indicators. The assessment is designed to show changes in key indicator estimates from the Feed the Future Phase One baseline assessment to the endline assessment. The Feed the Future ZOI Survey endline assessment, however, was not designed to support conclusions of causality or program attribution.