Farming and food production are among the most talked-about successes of Bangladesh's development. The country that Henry Kissinger once called a "bottomless basket" after independence is now the world's third-largest rice producer. High-yielding varieties, expanded irrigation, agricultural research, the tireless work of farmers and government policy support have brought remarkable success in grain production. Rice output has risen nearly fourfold in five decades. Disaster management, food stock management and expanded social safety net programmes have also played an important part. But has this success in producing food really ensured food security?

The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) 2026 report, published jointly by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), UNICEF, the World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Health Organization (WHO), shatters our complacency. It says 26.2 per cent of Bangladesh's people, about 4.54 crore, faced moderate or severe food insecurity in 2023-2025. More worrying still, in 2025 about 6.78 crore people (38.6 per cent) could not afford a healthy diet. In other words, there is food and there is a market, but people cannot afford nutritious food. This is the biggest crisis in Bangladesh's food security today.

For a long time, food security in Bangladesh was treated almost as a synonym for rice production. But in today's world the concept is much broader. FAO rests food security on four pillars: availability, access, utilisation (proper use of food and its nutritional value), and stability of access over time. Weakness in any one of them means there is no real food security.

Bangladesh has done remarkably well on the first pillar, availability. Rice output has grown, food stocks are stronger and the use of technology in farming has increased. But the second pillar, economic access to food, has become the biggest challenge. Although there is food in the market, inflation, income inequality and falling purchasing power are denying a large part of the low- and middle-income population nutritious food.

The Nobel-winning economist Amartya Sen explained this reality most clearly. In his well-known book Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation (1981), he showed that the root cause of famine is often not a lack of food but people's loss of entitlement to obtain it. If a worker, farmer or low-income earner does not get enough income for their labour, they will suffer hunger and malnutrition even when there is food in the market. Bangladesh's current situation reflects exactly that theory.

In recent years food inflation has significantly weakened people's entitlement to food. According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), food inflation stayed high for most of 2024 and 2025. The prices of eggs, fish, meat, milk, edible oil, fruit and vegetables rose faster than rice. As a result, low-income families first dropped animal protein, milk, fruit and other nutritious food from their diets. Hunger may have eased somewhat, but "hidden hunger", the lack of vitamins, minerals and micronutrients, is spreading.

SOFI 2026 reinforces that concern. It shows 25.1 per cent of children under five are stunted and 10.7 per cent are wasted, while 5.8 per cent are overweight. Bangladesh now faces a double burden of malnutrition. This is a new reality for developing economies: the poor do not get enough nutrition, while in cities unhealthy eating habits and heavily processed food are driving up obesity.

More alarming, only 37.6 per cent of children aged 6 to 23 months achieve minimum dietary diversity, meaning most children are not getting enough from the necessary food groups. The rate of exclusive breastfeeding has fallen from 64.1 per cent in 2012 to 53.3 per cent in 2024. This is a deep concern for the development of future human capital, because childhood malnutrition has a lasting negative effect not only on physical growth but also on cognitive development, educational achievement and future productivity.

The situation of women is not much more encouraging. According to SOFI 2026, 37.6 per cent of women aged 15 to 49 are anaemic, higher than a decade ago. Weak maternal nutrition is directly linked to child malnutrition, so no policy will succeed in the long run unless the nutrition of women and children is central to the food security debate.

Food security in Bangladesh is no longer just a matter for the agriculture ministry; it is an integrated question of economics, public health, social protection, climate change and good governance. Food security needs to be seen anew, giving equal weight to people's purchasing power, the quality of nutrition and social inequality alongside the quantity of food.

The current food security crisis cannot be understood through inflation or poverty alone. It is closely bound up with climate change, global geopolitics, weak markets and rapid urbanisation. In his well-known book Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity (1992), the sociologist Ulrich Beck argued that most risk in the modern world is no longer natural but the product of human-made economic, technological and political systems. Bangladesh's food system today is a real example of such a "risk society".

Bangladesh is a major importer of edible oil, wheat, pulses, sugar, onions, cotton and various food products, so any instability in international markets directly affects the domestic food market. The breakdown of supply chains after the Covid-19 pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine war, the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, higher fuel prices and rising global transport costs kept international food prices unstable for a long time. At the same time, the depreciation of the taka pushed import costs higher. The result was inflationary pressure not only on imported goods but in the domestic market as well.

Bangladesh's agriculture is also feeling the direct impact of climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report identifies South Asia as one of the regions most at risk from climate change. Frequent floods, flash floods, prolonged heatwaves, cyclones, river erosion and coastal salinity are undermining the stability of farm production. In 2024 and 2025, floods and excessive rain in different regions damaged rice, vegetable and fish production, while severe heatwaves in the north hurt aman and vegetable farming. This is where the fourth pillar of food security, stability, is most at risk.

Alongside production, food waste is a neglected problem. According to various FAO studies, post-harvest losses in developing countries are significant. In Bangladesh too, a lack of adequate storage, cold chains, processing and modern supply systems means large quantities of vegetables, fruit, fish and other farm produce are lost every year. Reducing this waste as well as raising output would increase food supply and help keep market prices relatively stable.

Rapid urbanisation has brought another important change. About 40 per cent of the country's people now live in urban areas, and the share is rising. Most city dwellers do not produce food and depend entirely on the market. When food prices rise, the food security of the urban poor, day labourers, transport workers, small traders and informal sector workers is most at risk. If food prices rise faster than incomes, food security will naturally weaken.

Food security is no longer just a matter of social welfare; it is a precondition for economic growth. World Bank and UNICEF research has repeatedly shown that childhood malnutrition lowers educational achievement, reduces work capacity and significantly cuts future earnings. Studies published in The Lancet have also shown that the loss of human capital due to malnutrition can reduce a country's gross domestic product (GDP) by several per cent. Malnutrition is not only a failure of the health sector but a cause of long-term economic loss.

That is why Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2, Zero Hunger, does not only speak of ending hunger; it gives equal weight to universal access to safe, nutritious and sufficient food, sustainable agriculture and better nutrition. Although Bangladesh has made notable progress on the SDGs, ending hunger and all forms of malnutrition by 2030 remains a big challenge, and it will become harder if the current trends in climate change, economic inequality and food inflation continue.

The previous government adopted the National Food and Nutrition Security Policy 2020, whose main aim is safe, nutritious and affordable food for all. Likewise, the Perspective Plan 2021-2041 stresses the modernisation and diversification of agriculture, better nutrition, climate-resilient technology and a more efficient food system. These policies are timely, but the pace and coordination of implementation are now what matter most. Making policy is relatively easy; effective implementation is the real challenge.

According to experts, Bangladesh's agricultural policy must now move beyond rice-centred thinking. Nutrition security cannot be achieved without diversifying food production. Investment must increase in pulses, oilseeds, fruit, vegetables, milk, eggs, fish and livestock. At the same time, a balance must be struck between fair prices for farmers and affordable prices for consumers. Unnecessary middlemen, artificial shortages and opaque supply chains in farm markets also push up food prices, so good governance in market management is essential for food security.

Social safety net programmes also need a new approach. The main aim of OMS, VGF, VGD, school feeding and cash assistance programmes should be to ensure nutrition, not just calories. Poor families must be enabled to buy fish, eggs, milk, pulses, fruit and vegetables as well, because rice satisfies hunger but does not make up for shortages of vitamins, protein and minerals.

Finally, food security is not only an indicator of farm output; it is also a measure of social justice, economic equality and human dignity. Amartya Sen taught us that an abundance of food is meaningless if people's right to obtain it is not secured. Ulrich Beck warned that integrated, not fragmented, policy is what works against modern risks. And the United Nations reminds us that a country's development is meaningful only when its benefits reach people's daily plates.

Bangladesh has written a new chapter of success in food production. But the biggest test ahead will be how to turn that success into nutrition security, purchasing power and fairness in food. The true measure of development lies not in the rice store but in the healthy growth of every child, the nutrition of every mother and the safe, balanced daily meals of every family.

The writer is a researcher and development worker.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.