Washington, D.C. – Increased restrictions on international migration by the primary host countries may exacerbate food insecurity in high-migrant source countries like Bangladesh, according to the International Food Policy Research Institute’s 2018 Global Food Policy Report.
Each year, the Global Food Policy Report assesses major developments and events in food policy around the developing world. According to the 2018 Global Food Policy Report, the rise of isolationism and protectionism, visible in the US withdrawal from multilateral trade and climate agreements, the UK’s “Brexit” from the EU, and growing anti-immigration rhetoric in developed countries, threatens to slow progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals and improved food security and nutrition.
“Policies that encouraged globalization through more open trade, migration, and knowledge sharing have been critical to recent unprecedented reductions in hunger and poverty,” said Shenggen Fan, director-general, IFPRI. “Enacting policies to leverage the benefits of globalization while minimizing the risks that fuel antiglobalism will be critical to meet the Sustainable Development Goals to end hunger and poverty by 2030.”
On linkages between international migration and threat to food security, the report points out that increased migration restrictions by primary host countries could exacerbate food insecurity, especially in migrant-source countries with large remittances inflows, like Bangladesh where the food insecure population ranges between 10 and 15 percent.
“Foreign remittances from migrant Bangladeshi workers play a key role in the domestic economy and help in ensuring food security for migrant source families. Any drastic changes in international migration policies in host countries with large Bangladeshi population may pose a challenge to food security of those families,” said Akhter Ahmed, Country Representative for Bangladesh, IFPRI.
According to the report, migration within the country’s borders can also increase food security. A program that gave food-insecure households in northwest Bangladesh money for bus tickets—less than US$9 per potential migrant—during the hungry season led to permanent increases in seasonal migration as well as in per capita consumption among migrant households. However, the propensity to migrate from rural areas in Bangladesh is low for the poorest households and then increases rapidly at higher income levels.
On the domestic front, the report also notes the progress Bangladesh has made in reducing hunger and malnutrition through implementation of social protection programs. “Bangladesh has achieved one of the fastest and most prolonged reductions in child stunting in the world,” said Ahmed. “The government’s embrace of social policies rooted in research and evidence has been central to the progress achieved in the last couple of years. Social protection programs covered 28 percent of Bangladeshi households and accounted for nearly 2.2 percent of GDP in 2016. With its National Social Security Strategy, the government’s initiative to further widen the scope of social protection programs to take a lifecycle approach, such as through the new Child Benefit Program, is a welcome step,” Ahmed added.
To improve food and nutrition security, Bangladesh has taken initiatives such as the Agriculture, Nutrition and Gender Linkages (ANGeL) research project to identify actions and investments in agriculture to improve nutrition and empower women; nationwide electronic system for monitoring public food grain stocks under its Public Food Distribution System; and implementing Modern Food Storage Facilities project in disaster-prone areas.
Policy reforms, regulations, and incentives have led to the promotion of the use of agricultural technology to increase production of diverse, nutritive, and high-value crops. “Bangladesh is the first country in the world to develop rice varieties biologically fortified with zinc. The government has approved these zinc-rich rice varieties, which are being cultivated by farmers. Zinc-enriched rice can fight child mortality and stunting rates, namely by reducing diarrhea and pneumonia. The country has attached high priority to research and development of stress-tolerant varieties like salinity, cold, drought, flood, submergence, and heat tolerant crop varieties to mitigate adverse effects of climate change,” said Ahmed.
In its recommendations, the report emphasizes increasing efficiencies, reducing postharvest losses, and developing agro-processing sector to meet some of the challenges the region faces due to climate change and its implications for the food security of vulnerable populations in Bangladesh and South Asia, as a region.
The 2018 Global Food Policy Report also provides regional and country-specific profiles of the unique challenges facing Africa, Middle East and North Africa, Central Asia, South Asia, East Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean.
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The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) seeks sustainable solutions for ending hunger and poverty. IFPRI was established in 1975 to identify and analyze alternative national and international strategies and policies for meeting the food needs of the developing world, with a particular emphasis on low-income countries and on the poorer groups in those countries. www.ifpri.org.