FOOD SECURITY IN BANGLADESH
(Md, Ibrahim kholilullah, AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS ,2ND BATCH ,SYLHET AGRICULTURAL UNIVERSITY ,01718996557)

The world summit of 1996 defined food security as existing ‘when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life’. Commonly the concept of food security is defined as including both physical and economic access to food that meets peoples dietary needs as well as their food preferences. In many countries ,health problem related to dietary excess are an ever increasing threat, infact ,malnutrition and food borne diarrhea are become double burden.
Food Security Status and Challenges:
Food security situation in Bangladesh has improved, especially on the availability side, and further improvements on access and utilisation, to be sustainable and large-scale, needs renewed efforts from the government, civil society (including media) and the development partners.
Records say in 70s’, 70% people were under the food consumption poverty line. Today this is down to under half of the population.
Today, though people are not dying, they are going hungry and becoming stunted with reduced mental and physical capacity. They are suffering. The hungry population of over 60 million people is larger than most other global cases- the third largest poor population in any country after China and India5. Nearly half of Bangladesh’s children are underweight, making it one of the most severe cases of malnutrition in the world. While Bangladesh has definitely got more food than it had thirty years back, yet almost half of Bangladesh is still far from being food secure. The World Bank and GoB-UN in their respective reports on MDGs, put the target of 34% children being underweight as non-attainable at present rates of progress. Much will need to be done to achieve the 2015 MDG target of halving the proportion of people who suffer from hunger and malnutrition. Demographic changes in upcoming years are likely to affect poverty and hunger in adverse ways.

A comprehensive programme to address hunger would include interventions in the following areas: 1. Promoting food security by sustaining strong growth of domestic food production and implementing a liberalized regime for food imports
2. Designing and implementing interventions to promote food security
3. Supporting safety nets for protection against natural disasters
4.Promoting change in food habits for increasing nutritional intake of vulnerable
5. Promoting improved infant feeding practices, including breast-feeding practices
6. Supporting maternal schooling and hygienic practices
7. Improving access to safe drinking water, especially by addressing the threat of arsenic contamination of underground water
8. Improving access to sanitation
9. Improving access to basic health facilities
10. Promoting partnership among the Government, private sector and NGOs
Aspects and Issues of Food and Nutritional Security:
1. Availability
2. Access
3. Utilization Institutional Challenge:
Food security is a multi-sectoral, multi-ministerial issue. There is a need to develop an integrated policy and action plan, bringing together all the diverse players and stakeholders as well as making them accountable to contributing their bit to the overall challenge of improving Food
Security. National Food Policy Capacity Strengthening Programme, the new FAO-FPMU project is expected to provide a strategic lead on developing this approach.
Strategic Options:
Faced with the challenges of an increasing population22, natural subsidence (on account of the ascent of the Himalayas) decreasing availability of agricultural land, increasing costly food prices, the options before Bangladesh include:

1. Increasing productivity-an all out effort in this regard; learning from some recent experiments in rice production23. Cutting down the wastage- the yields loss in Bangladesh is colossal (30-40%)
2. Diversification of the food basket with an aim to attain minimum self-sufficiency in the noncereal food grains.
3. Strengthening analysis and monitoring of needs and Food Gap

4. Improve access through expansion of the PFDS/ safety net programmes without compromising on the targeting and leakage. Successful interventions need to be replicated and expanded. While sustainable improvements in the food security status of the poor are welcome, as these would act as the safety ladder.

5. Improve utilisation through improving nutrition education and availability and access to safe cereal and non-cereal foods. Huge improvements in food security can be achieved through improving knowledge on food-based nutrition .

6. Promote fortification of foodstuff as it provides a proven and cost-effective strategy of dealing with micronutrient deficiencies.

FOOD SECURITY IN BANGLADESH: FOOD AVAILABILITY
1.0 Background
1.1 Food availability is one of the three conditions of food security as defined in the World
Food Summit. The other two conditions are access and utilization. This paper focuses on the availability of food as an essential element of the concept of food security. In addition to rice and wheat that constitute the staple food of Bangladesh, the paper deals with the production and availability issues of other major food commodities, such as potato, pulses, oilseeds, vegetables and fruits, and fisheries and livestock products. Maize has not been considered as it is still a minor cereal in terms of human consumption. Availability is a function of domestic production, imports,food aids and security stock.

1.2 Domestic production: Food grain production, particularly rice production has doubled in the last two decades with the use of Green Revolution technology (high yielding varieties, fertilizer, irrigation and pesticide) coupled with growth of institutional infrastructure and a positive shift in public policy and market forces. As a major staple, rice occupies 71 percent of the gross cropped area and accounts for over 94 percent of food grain production

1.3 Rice production continues to increase, but wheat production is showing a declining trend in recent years. Remarkable progress has been made in rice production during the last ten years.
In 1994-95, rice production was 16.83 million tons, which has steadily increased to 26.19 million tons in 2003-04 (Table 1). Rice production estimated for the year 2004-05 is 25.16 million tons.
Wheat production also increased from 1.25 million tons in 1994-95 to 1.91 million tons in 1998-
99. It then started declining and the production has come down to 0.97 million tons (estimated) in 2004-05. Similarly, pulses and oilseed production steadily declined mainly because of the loss of areas under these crops to Boro rice and other remunerative winter crops.

1.4 Fish production increased from 1.17 million tons in 1994-95 to 2.10 million tons in 2003-
04. Meat, milk and egg production has also increased significantly over the last ten years. But the shortage is still wide. The current per capita intake of animal protein is less than 2g per day against the FAO recommendation of 28g per day.

1.5 Growth: Crop sub-sector growth has been highly unstable varying from – 1.7% in 1994-
95 to 1.67% in 2003-04 (Bangladesh Economic Review, 2004). The highest growth rate of 8.1 percent was registered in 1999-00, followed by 6.4 percent in 1996-97 and 6.2 percent in 2000-
01.
1.6 Per capita availability: In estimating the per capita availability of food items, BARC based its calculation on the population size of 119, 130 and 139 million for the year 1994-95,
1999-00 and 2004-05 respectively and the per capita food intake figure published by BBS in 2003(Household Income and Expenditure Survey, 2000).

1.7 Import: For the sake of convenience, public import and food aid data are taken together for discussion as the volume is not large compared to domestic production and private import.
Import of food grains either by the private sector or by the public sector does not follow any pattern or trend .

1.8 No fixed trend is observed in public distribution and domestic procurement of food grains.
In some years, both distribution and procurement of food grains increased and in other years, it decreased. This indicates that public distribution and procurement of food grains are guided by the level of domestic production and availability in a given year

1.9 Current availability and gaps: The total requirement of cereals in 2004-05 is estimated to be 23.03 million tons, based on 487 gm/capita/day consumption (BBS Household Income and
Expenditure Survey 2000) for a population size of 139 million. Against this, production of cereals (cleaned rice and wheat) in 2004-05 is estimated at 23.52 million tons after deduction of 10% for seeds, feed and wastage, showing a surplus of 0.49 million tons

1.10 Projected requirement and production in 2015: According to the projected level of requirements and production of important food crops estimated by BARC for the target year 2015 of meeting the millennium development goals (Table 5), there will be a marginal surplus of 1.20million tons of food grains and 2.03 million tons of potato. The projected requirement of cereals was estimated on the basis of 156 million people in 2015 by using the current consumption rateof 487 gm/capita/day.

Table 5: Projected requirements and production of major food items in 2015:
Food items Food Production in 2004-05 (mT)
(less 11.58%) Requirements in
2015 (mT)
(less 11.58%) Production in
2015 (mT)
(less 11.58%) Surplus (+)
Gaps (– )
(mT)
Rice and wheat 26.13 27.85 29.05 +1.20 pulse 0.53 1.85 0.97 -0.88
Oilseeds 0.56 3.17 0,90 -2.27 vegetables 7.28 10.75 9.82 -0.90

2.0 Problems and Issues

2.1 Technical problems:
2.2 Smallholder dairy and poultry development,
2.3 Institutional problems
2.4 Institutional capacity of the Ministry of Food and Disaster Management
2.5 Funding

3.0 Project Implementation Problems
Implementation of development project is not satisfactory in all cases. The Finance
Minister himself expressed dissatisfaction with the overall progress of implementation of the development projects. There are problems, but they cannot be generalized. Some problems are project-specific. In this paper, some of the common problems are highlighted. Delayed commencement of project implementation due to administrative and procedural problems, procurement and staff recruitment problems, delayed recruitment of consultant, frequent transfer of project Directors and cost overrun are some of the general problems affecting project implementation. Weak organizational capacity of the line departments and low implementation capacity in terms of technical knowledge and managerial skills is also a major problem. In most cases, program planning at the local level, including preparation of work plan, site selection and organization of, say, demonstration and training program is poor. Record keeping and reporting

FOOD SECURITY AND ACCESS TO FOOD: PRESENT STATUS AND FUTURE PERSPECTIVE
1.1 Agriculture sector contributed to about 22% of total GDP, out of which crop sector shared
73%, fisheries 10%, livestock 10% and forestry 7%. The growth of agriculture sector in the Fiscal Year July 97-June 98 was 3.1% which was lower than the projected growth of 4%. The food grain production in the year 2003-04 was 27.44 million tons, 2.8% higher than the historical highest record achieved last year, which met approximately 90% of national food grain requirement
1.2 The Government of Bangladesh has identified Food Security as an important factor contributing to its socio-economic stabilization and development. Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food which meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.
1.3 The 1996 World Food Summit definition of food security is “food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life”.

2. Different kinds and dimensions of food security
2.1. A very important factor in determining food security is to identify the nature of food
Security problem and it is common to draw a distinction between the chronic and transitory food insecurity.
2.2. When individuals or groups of people suffer from food insecurity all of the time, then they can be said to suffer from chronic food insecurity
2.3. Transitory food insecurity occurs when households face a temporary decline in access to enough food. Transitory food insecurity can be further divided into temporary food insecurity and cyclical or seasonal food insecurity
2.4. Transitory food insecurity may lead to chronic food insecurity, depending on how severe it is and how frequently it occurs
2.5. All of these types of disruption to food supplies can trigger crises by threatening a population’s access to food

3.Measuring Food Security and Insecurity
3.1. In order to understand better the nature and extent of the food security situation and the possible ways to improving it, it is important to distinguish between food security at the national, local, household and intra-household level
3.2. Food security at the national level is determined by the availability of enough resources for the whole population
3.3. At the sub-regional levels, food security can be measured by comparing regional nutritional requirements with availability of dietary calories per head
3.4 . At the household level, food security is dependent on a household’s access to enough food. Thus it is closely linked with the issue of poverty, access, sufficiency, vulnerability and sustainability. 3.5 At the household level, food security is dependent on a household’s access to enough food. .
4. Identifying the Food Insecure

4.1. Food security at the national level is perhaps best described as a satisfactory balance between food demand and food supply at reasonable prices
4.2. It is important as a first step in developing an appropriate strategy for enhancing food security to identify the nature and level of food insecurity problems
4.3. We have argued that food security at national level, i.e., self-reliance in food at the national level does not necessarily mean food security at the household or individual level
4.5. Even when aggregate food supplies are adequate, a number of factors may prevent poor households or individuals from acquiring enough food
4.6. Poverty and hunger, as we know, are not simply economic problems in the narrow sense, but more importantly it has social and political dimensions as well

4.7. Moreover, adequate food availability at the household level does not necessarily mean that all members of the household enjoy access to enough food

5. Overview on Poverty and Access to Food Situation
5.1. According to latest Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES 2000) of
Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) the malnutrition problem is desperately serious for the poorest 14% of the rural population consuming fewer than 1600 calories per capita per day,levels barely adequate for survival. Another 10% consume between 1600 and 1800 calories per day, while roughly 23% consume more than 1800 calories but less than the minimum caloric requirement set in Bangladesh at 2122 per day

5. 2 . In all, roughly half of the country’s rural households would be considered food insecure and also fall below established poverty lines. Although these percentages are considerably less severe than those which existed two decades ago -the percentage of the rural population consuming less than required calories in 1981 was 73% - improvements have not continued during the 1990s during which average caloric intake has actually fallen.

5.3. It has been evident that increased domestic production, supplemented by imports and overall public food management contributed to relatively adequate availability of food at national level over the recent past years. However, as has been mentioned, the fundamental spirit of food security is to ensure availability and consumption of food at individual level
5.4. Food security at household level is closely linked with poverty. These poverty and food security problems are massive, with approximately half of the population lacking the resources to acquire enough food and consequently remaining below the poverty line

6. Access to Food: Intervention for Enhancing Current Status
6.1. Effective implementation of the targeted food safety net programmes
6.1.1. In the absence of direct transfers of food or cash with which to purchase food, private markets sometimes fail to provide food for the impoverished, especially the hardcore poor who are exposed to severe nutritional risk throughout the year
6.1.2. A well-targeted safety net programme may increase the real income and food consumption
Of the target group without providing those benefits to non-needy members of the population.

6.1.3. Identifying vulnerable households is a challenge given their considerable mobility over time. Study results suggest that, natural crises accounted for about one-third of this movement, while life-cycle and structural factors accounts for remaining two-thirds

6.1.4. Among the vulnerable groups, urban slum dwellers and rural landless confront the greatest hardships.

6.1.5. One important issue relating to access to and consumption of food is the distribution of food among members of the household. Even though households have enough food at their disposal, there is no guarantee that all individuals in the households have equal access to food.

6.2. Intervention for Improving Food Market Efficiency:
6.2.1. An efficient food market will ensure unhindered flow of goods and services across time and space. 6.2.2. Improving market environment calls for measures like improvement of market infrastructure, unrestricted storage and movements for private trade, provision of incentives for private sector 6.2.3. Bangladesh experiences two periods of price hike in rice, one during September to
November (before T. aman harvest) and the other during March and April (before Boro harvest) as national stock goes down. During these periods, food prices are at their highest level
7. Improving Food Security: Policies and Actions

7.1. Improving Availability of Food
7.1.1. The four components of food availability are domestic production, commercial import, food aid and stock adjustment
7.1.2. The policies pursued by the government to increase domestic production include provision of incentive price to the growers, implicit and explicit subsidy on major agricultural inputs including credit and investment in agricultural research for generation of new technologies
7.1.3. Regarding import, significant policy changes occurred from the early nineties. Private import of foodgrain has been allowed from 1992, and tax/tariff structures have been made flexible 7.1.4. Public foodgrain stock plays an important role in responding to emergency food situation in the country.

7.2. Improving Access to Food
7.2.1. The government of Bangladesh uses two broad approaches to increase access to food, particularly for the poor
7.3. Measuring Effectiveness of Food Programmes
7.3.1. While all the food programmes aim to help the poor, they vary considerably in their specific objectives, and also in their effectiveness in accomplishing the desired objectives
7.3.2. An important consideration would be to measure the development impact and incorporate it in the cost effectiveness analysis
7.3.3. Bangladesh has so far been able to raise domestic production and maintain availability of foodgrain upto the level of aggregate requirement, as defined by certain stipulated per capita requirement. 7.3.4. Regarding intake of nutrients, per capita calorie and protein intake for the average rural and urban population appear to be sufficient in relation to per capita requirement.
7.3.5. Increasing poor peoples’ access to food requires improvement of earning capacity of the poor and vulnerable sections of the population.

8.Incorporation of both Supply and Demand-based approaches to analyze food security:

8.1. Policies to improve food security need both supply and demand-based approaches
8.2. Major factors determining food availability
8.3. Major factors determining access to food are:
• At the household level-
• At the national level

9.3. Stabilization of Food Markets and Public Food Distribution System (PFDS): 9.3.1. The major objective of the Public Food Distribution System (PFDS) market interventions is stabilization of foodgrain market

four key areas:
• efficient cereal stock policy;
• appropriate market intervention strategy to protect producer and consumer’s interests as
• well as to promote well-functioning markets;
• effective trade and tariff policy; and
• development of non-cereal food markets

9.3.2. Since external and domestic supply, demand and market conditions are constantly changing, an efficient public stock policy (in terms of level, composition and cost) requires constant monitoring and analysis.
9.3.3. Timing and modalities of market interventions (public procurement and distribution), are crucial in bringing impacts on market and target households

9.4. Enhancing Nutrition for Vulnerable Groups through Targeted Intervention
9.4.1. Sufficient availability and access to food do not guarantee good nutritional outcomes.
Intra-household food distribution, consumer choice of foods
9.4.2. Enhanced nutrition and utilization of food through implementation of various interventions require special efforts and attention in following areas:

(i) Improving the impact of targeted nutrition programs, particularly for women and children;
(ii) Increasing the effectiveness of food supplementation and fortification;
(iii) Enhancing quality and safety aspects of food for the urban poor; and
(iv) Promoting balanced diets
10.5.3. In order to improve the impact of targeted nutrition programs, special attention should be attached on factors responsible for nutritional stress

10. Key to Long-term Food Security: Access to Sufficient Income and Resources:
10.1. The households can make use of the resources available to them as well as the level of those resources depends to some extent on the nature of the environment within which they operate, and the specific forms of the institutions which regulate the relations between the various economic agents.
10.2. Entitlement Factors influencing Access to Food and Poverty: An approach to take account of the following entitlement factors may be useful.
10.3. All these entitlements give an individual control over resources which they can use, within the rules and regulations laid down by society, to satisfy their needs, including the very basic needof food.

11. Enhancement of Access to Food through Public Food Distribution System (PFDS):
11.1. Food Price Stabilization and Consumption Smoothing of the Poor
11.2. The Public Food Distribution System (PFDS) Functions
11.3. PFDS: Operational Demand and Supply Factors
12.3.1. The annual cereal demand for PFDS depends on three broad factors: - size of the food aid supported programs, - food-based market intervention for price stabilization, and - non-food aid supported targeted programs
11.4. PFDS: Optimal Stock, Stock Rotation and Strategic Storage Capacity
11.5. Private Sector’s Role in Food Trade and Price Stabilization
11.6. Coping with Food Emergencies

12. Access to Food Strategy and the Public Food Distribution System:

12.1. Bangladesh’s current Food Access Strategy: The food access strategy is being designed to address all aspects of food security i.e, availability, access and utilization, at different levels - national/regional, household and individuals (intra-household) and nature of food security – chronic, transitory. The long and short-term objectives and strategies of food security strategy are discussed below.
12.2. Access to Food objectives linked to strategies and activities
The long and short-term objectives and strategies of Access to Food are as follows:
12.2.1. Long-run Access to Food
12.2.1.1. Objectives:
Access to Food strategy aims, over the long run, to achieve overall food security – that is, access by all citizens to an adequate intake of food

12.2.1.2. Strategy:
Access to Food requires action on two fronts. First is assurance of a continuous, low-cost food supply. Second is an income distribution that places adequate purchasing power in the hands of the poor.
12.2.2. Short-run Access to Food
12.2.2.1. Objectives
Periodically consumers face acute nutritional stress because of natural disasters, weather-induced

12.2.2.2. Strategy
Access to Food Strategy aims to protect consumers and producers from short-run fluctuations through the following actions:
- security stocks and disaster relief ;
- targeted relief for vulnerable; and
- price stabilization, to protect farmers and consumers from abnormal seasonal price
Movement
12.2.2.3. Instruments:
Government will depend on the following instruments to achieve the above short-run objectives and strategies.

12.2.2.3.1. Security Stocks:
It is the policy of the Government to encourage private stocking of foodgrain by farmers, traders and millers.

12.2.2.3.2. Price Stabilization:
Like the public sector (PFDS) the private agents can promote price stabilization. Free access to international markets provides a buffer against both upward and downward movements in food prices 12.2.2.3.3. Targeted Food Distribution for Vulnerable:
This unlike others is exclusively a government obligation

12.2.2.3.4. Promotion of Private Trade
Government is promoting increased involvement of private sectors in the foodgrain market especially in the import trade. Care should be taken in programming public sale of rice and wheat.

FOOD SECURITY IN BANGLADESH: UTILIZATION,
NUTRITION AND FOOD SAFETY
1.0 To most people food security means a stock of cereals that can be used to meet an unforeseen food crisis. Food certainly is not cereal alone, neither its security is just a sufficient amount of cereal stock. Food means balanced diet and its security refers to availability of such diet at a reasonable price.
2.0 Food consumption
Average per capita daily intake of major food items (in group) in the country was 886.2 grams in
1991-92, which increased to 913.8 grams in 1995-1996 but it reduced to 893.1 grams in 2000. In rural area average food intake was 878.1 grams in 1991-92, 910.5 gram in 1995-96 and 898.7 grams in 2000 Intake of edible oil has been increased from 10.1 gm in 1991-92 to 12.82 gm in the year 2000.But it was 9.8 gm in 1995-96.

3.0 Nutrition Situation
Malnutrition is one of the major public health problems in the country. 30% children born each year weigh below 2.5 kg. Child Nutrition Survey, 2000 revealed that among the preschool age children only 11.5 % of are nutritionally normal where 2.4% children are severely malnourished,
34.7% are moderately malnourished and 50.7% are mildly malnourished. The survey also revealed that the national prevalence of wasting, stunting and underweight in preschool age children are 11.7%, 48.8% and 51.1% respectively. These figures were significantly higher in
Child Nutrition Survey 1995-96 i.e. wasting, stunting and underweight were 16.6%, 51.4% and
57.4% respectively
4.0 Food and Nutrition Policies, Plan, Strategies and Programmes of Bangladesh
Policies and Strategies:
Bangladesh is one of the signatories of unanimously adopted “World Declaration and Plan of
Action for Nutrition” in International Conference on Nutrition (ICN), 1992 - jointly organized by
FAO and WHO and Declaration and Plan of Action of the “World Food Summit, 1996” organized by FAO. Article 15 (a) of the Constitution of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh declares the fundamental responsibility of the state is to secure its citizen to the provision of the basic necessities of life including food. On the other hand Article 18(a) of the Constitution outlines “the state shall regard the raising of the level of nutrition and improvement of public heath as among its primary dutie

Programmes:
National Nutrition Project (NNP):
Regarding the nutrition related programmes of the Government, one of the remarkable and significant endeavour was: Bangladesh Integrated Nutrition Programme (BINP, 1995-2002).
BINP was introduced in 59 Upazillas in four phases. National Nutrition Project (NNP, 2000-2004) was designed in the light of BINP experience. Following revisit in design, NNP was introduced in a new manner in January 2003 and fielded in Nov-Dec. 2003 and presently being operated in 105 upazillas. From July 2004, NNP has been continued as part of Nutrition .

Food Assisted Programs:
Vulnerable Group Development (VGD) and Integrated Food Security (IFS) Programme are nation wide programmes being implemented in rural upazillas covering 7,50,000 ultra poor women of the country. Capacity building through provision of a “development package” consisting of group formation, awareness raising on legal, social, health and nutrition issues, functional education, training on marketable income generation skills, savings and provision of credit. Together with the above interventions, the VGD also has some nutrition oriented complementary interventions called: i. Atta Fortification in Milling and Fortification Units (MFUs) and ii. VGD-National Nutrition Project NNP) Collaboration

5. FOOD SYSTEM, FOOD SECURITY AND CLIMATE CHANGE

Generally, the term food system is used to describe all the activities involved in producing, processing, transporting, selling, storing and eating food. More specifically, food system comprises certain activities, resources and infrastructure that collectively determine the food security of a given locality or a group of people

6. CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACT ON FOOD SECURITY IN BANGLADESH
6.1 Impact of Temperature on Crop Production
6.2 Impact of rainfall on crop production
6.3 Impact of Sea Level Rise on Crop Production
6.4 Impact of Flood on Crop Production
6.5 Impact of Cyclone on Crop Production
6.6 Impact of Drought on Crop Production Due to Climate Change

7. ACHIEVING FOOD SECURITY IN THE FACE OF CLIMATE CHANGE:
In order to mitigate the adverse impacts of climate change on food sector, we need to analyze the possible options that could assist in increasing food security. Therefore, adaptation in the agriculture sector must be well integrated with both the broad national development goals and livelihood priorities at the local level. Rural agrarian people have long been adapted to a variety of climate risks with their traditional knowledge. These coping strategies are varied depending on regions and prevailing socio-economic conditions. As the climate change is a reality now, more and different adaptation intervention is required to ensure food security within a given time

Recommendations:
1. Expansion of community based nutrition programme should be considered with utmost importance. 2. Targeted safety net programmes for the poor and ultra poor should be continued and made more effective.
3. Supports should be expanded for income generating activities for the rural poor.
4. Supports should be continued for the marginal farmers to enhance agricultural production.
5. Community based health and nutrition education should be strengthened.
6. Proper enforcement of laws and regulation related to food safety and quality should be ensured. 7. Food standards as well as standards for inspection, testing, labeling, packaging should be harmonized with that of international standards.
8. Monitoring and surveillance of food products in the market should be strengthened. 9. NPAN should be reviewed and updated with the recent developments.

Conclusions:
Improving nutritional status have a significant impact on survival as well as physical and
Cognitive development and productivity and thus an essential input for economic development. It is observed from different studies and literatures, that food consumption and nutritional status have improved, but daunting task are ahead to achieve the MDG targets. Food safety situation is also needed to improve significantly to improve food utilization and nutrition component of food security in Bangladesh.

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