Bangladesh is still considered as a country with severe localised food insecurity due to historic uncertainty in crop production, deep poverty, concentration of internally displaced people and also influx of refugees, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation. Carrying the label of a food importing country, it belongs to the category of 31 nations that have long been living under the shadow of some kind of crisis requiring external assistance to make food available to people.

The UN technical agency, however, forecast that Bangladesh, alongside a few other countries, is expected to produce total cereal output this year more or less similar to that of the year before. The projection of total cereals for 2009 is 48.7 million tonnes, compared to an estimated output of 48.4 million tonnes the previous year. Annual shortfall of rice in recent decade varied from one million tonnes to three million tonnes, showed official statistics.

Food prices in many poor countries that are importers of food still remain stubbornly high despite a good 2009 world cereal production, the global body observed in its latest ‘Crop Prospects and Food Situation’ report released on Tuesday. ‘In Bangladesh, localised food supply and market access difficulties persist. The food security situation of vulnerable groups has been further adversely affected by soaring food prices,’ said the FAO report. It mentioned that cyclone Aila hit parts of coastal Bangladesh on 25 May 2009, triggering tidal surges and floods affecting about four million people. In view of sensitivity in food price, the government of Bangladesh continues to keep a healthy food stock in line with the national food policy. The food ministry has fixed a target of procuring 1.5 million tonnes of Aman rice after purchasing about 1.2 million tonnes of rice during the Boro season.

Meanwhile, despite higher global food output forecast, the UN agency forecast a nine per cent decline in the world cereal trade in 2009-2010, indicating a state of food insecurity in various countries. ‘For the world's poorest people who spend up to 80 percent of their household budgets on food, the food price crisis is not over yet,’ said FAO assistant director general Hafez Ghanem. ‘It is now a global priority to increase investment in developing country agriculture in order to fight poverty and hunger.’ In Asia, the outlook for rice production in 2009 appeared bleak since July following irregular monsoon rains in major rice-producing countries like India and natural disasters in some other countries, including Japan, the Republic of Korea, Lao People's Democratic Republic and Sri Lanka, said the report.

-New Age