Abstract
Bangladesh is a country with scarce resources and its major challenge is to feed its huge number of population. Although the success story is encouraging, the development challenges ahead are also daunting. The progress towards achieving household food-security in Bangladesh has remained slow. Hence the present study was conducted in Mymensingh region of Bangladesh during 2012-13 to know the present status of food security, coping strategies adopted by farm households during food crisis and key factors as well as determinants of food security by using primary data. Cost of basic need method, direct calorie intake method, food security index, food insecurity gap/surplus index (p) and the head count ratio (H), coping strategy index and Cobb- Douglas type calorie intake model as well as multiple logistic regression model were used to analyze the data in this study. The study employed mainly farm level cross sectional data collected from 450 farm households, of them 150 from each category i.e. small, marginal and landless farm households in three upazilas of three districts namely Mymensingh (Phulpur), Netrokona (Kendua) and Kishoreganj (Kishoreganj Sadar) of Bangladesh. The average household size in all locations was 5.15 persons per household. About 56 percent of the sample population was literate and 44 percent illiterate. The standard of living was better in small farm group. Average annual income per household was estimated at Tk. 128510, Tk. 89393 and Tk. 69161 for small, marginal and landless farm households, respectively. In small farm households, 51.68 percent of total expenditure accounted to consumption expenditure whereas it was 63.71 percent in marginal and 67.91 percent in landless farm households. It is evident that, the landless farm households expend bulk of their total expenditure on consumption than that of the small and marginal farm households. All categories of farmers except landless under the selected area were more or less self-sufficient in cereals, but they have got tremendous shortages in other crops like potato, vegetables, pulses, oilseeds (mustard), fish and poultry and livestock. In addition to cereal crops, more attention should be given to increase vegetables, pulses, oilseeds, fish, and livestock (meat and milk) production for farm households. Average energy, protein, fat, calcium and iron intake per day was 2372.39 Kcal, 59.39 gm, 18.09 gm, 609.75 mg and 34.77 mg for food secured farm households while the corresponding figure was 1936.60 kcal, 47.47 gm, 12.15 gm, 405.19 mg and 29.01 mg, respectively for food insecured farm households. According to CBN method, about 22.7% of the small, 23.64% of the marginal and 28.04% of the landless farm households lie below the lower poverty line and about 34.87% of the small, 37.34% of the marginal and 46.01% of the landless farm households lie below the upper poverty line. According to DCI method, about 15.55% of the small, 18.65% of the marginal and 21.08% of the landless farm households lie below the hardcore poverty line and about 32.12% of the small, 35.27% of the marginal and 38.81% of the landless farm households lie below the absolute poverty line. In all farm category, 22, 27 and 51 percent households possessed high, moderate and low level of food insecurity in the study area. About 45% of small farm households relied on less expensive food for everyday as consumption coping strategy during food shortage where corresponding figure was 49% for marginal and 56% for landless. Irrespective of landholding, about 53% reliant upon borrowing money for coping with food insecurity followed by sale of households assets (45%), reduce food cost (40%) and wanting help from relatives (36%). The impact of the variables was not uniform across farm households and districts, suggesting that such variation should be taken into account in planning and designing policies for food security. Results of the logit model revealed that the coefficients of farm size, off-farm income, annual income and household own production were positive and significant which implies that these factors had a positive and significant impact in attaining food security of the farm households. On the contrary, household size and input cost had negative and significant relationship with households' food security. Negative dependency ratio implies that farm households and the households with more earning member were more food-secured than large ones. It is also observed that creation of employment opportunities throughout the year, especially in the lean season, and government supports are suggested to tackle the food insecurity problems for the study areas.