Since the liberation of Bangladesh, the government of Bangladesh introduced a series of policy measures in agriculture and food sectors to encourage pro-market distribution of seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and diesel fuel for irrigation. The dominant feature of the policy reform had been the government’s liberalisation of the fertilizer and irrigation equipment markets. These reforms can be reasonably credited with the success in rice production during the 1984-1992 period. Reforms in the foodgrains market in the 1990s reduced the public sector involvement in these markets. Public procurement to stabilise prices and provide production incentives to farmers suffered from certain inefficiencies, although the overall impact of public procurement and price support programmes could be considered positive. The policy reforms were surprisingly smooth partly reflecting the absence of organised lobby by peasants and partly the fact that the policy reforms have benefitted, by and large, all groups of farmers.

Poverty has different and varying manifestations. In fact, Hulme et al (2001) proposes a five-tiered categorisation of poverty. This identifies the always poor, usually poor, churning poor, occasionally poor and never poor. The first two categories are chronically poor, the next two transitory poor and the last one is non-poor. Charting the factors that are associated with transition in the poverty status of a household should help us to understand the processes that create or erode chronic poverty and relate these to policy and action. In general, research should focus primarily on those who experience or are likely to experience poverty for extended periods of time, and the processes that keep them poor. This is not to deny, however, that while "long duration" is the key criterion, chronic poverty can often be multi-dimensional and severe. While poverty trends are of interest, the prime focus of research should be on the poverty dynamics of individuals, households and social groups.

A large number of the people in Bangladesh are deprived of basic economic and social rights. The poor in Bangladesh do not even meet the minimum nutritional requirement to maintain a healthy body. Hence, poverty in Bangladesh, as elsewhere, is synonymous with hunger and malnutrition. An attempt has been made in this paper to evaluate the performance of Bangladesh on the implementation of the right to food in the light of the commitments made by the State. In particular, the paper has examined whether the process of policy formulation, implementation and monitoring is consistent with the requirements of the rights-based approach. The paper has also suggested possible directions that the State of Bangladesh needs to follow for enhanced implementation of the right to food in the country.

No AccessOther papers1 Dec 2007Distortions to Agricultural Incentives in BangladeshAuthors/Editors: Nazneen Ahmed, Zaid Bakht, Paul Dorosh, Quazi ShahabuddinNazneen Ahmed, Zaid Bakht, Paul Dorosh, Quazi Shahabuddinhttps://doi.org/10.1596/37203SectionsAboutPDF (0.7 MB) ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareFacebookTwitterLinked In Abstract: Bangladesh has substantially liberalized its trade and agricultural pricing policies since independence in 1971, removing most distortions to agricultural incentives by the mid-1990s. Although trade protection for some agricultural and industrial products has increased sharply since 1998, total distortions in agriculture remain small. In particular, domestic and international trade policies for the major staples, rice and wheat, are substantially more liberal than in Pakistan or India. In the early 1970s, Bangladesh pursued a highly restrictive trade and exchange rate policy characterized by import regulations, high import tariffs, export taxes, pervasive quantitative restrictions, and an overvalued exchange rate, similar to policies of the 1960s when it was part of united Pakistan. The policy regime in the 1970s was especially restrictive for the agricultural sector. The government had a monopoly on import of most agricultural commodities and placed major restrictions on exports of raw jute, the major agricultural export. As a result of these distortions, agricultural price incentives were substantially reduced throughout the period (Rahman 1994). This chapter describes the changing structure of distortions to agricultural incentives in Bangladesh, and the forces that have driven it. The next section describes the growth and structural changes of the Bangladesh economy with particular emphasis on the agricultural sector. An overview of the evolution of agricultural policies in Bangladesh since independence is then provided, before reporting time series of estimates of nominal rates of assistance (NRAs) for selected agricultural products. The changing political economy of agricultural price and trade policies is then discussed, followed by some concluding observations. Previous bookNext book FiguresreferencesRecommendeddetails View Published: December 2007 Copyright & Permissions Related RegionsSouth AsiaRelated CountriesBangladeshRelated TopicsAgricultureMacroeconomics and Economic Growth KeywordsGROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCTEXCHANGE RATESTRADE LIBERALIZATIONPOLITICAL ECONOMYRICEWHEAT PDF DownloadLoading ...

This report addresses the recent dynamics of poverty in rural Bangladesh with particular focus on two groups of the poorest - the chronically poor and the extreme poor - based on the 64-village census plus survey conducted under the Programme for Research on Chronic Poverty in Bangladesh (Phase II). In doing so, it uses perception-based criteria to ascertain the current poverty rates that include subjective measurements of both extreme and chronic poverty at the aggregate level. Using the same criteria, the trajectories into and out of poverty are also outlined. A more detailed explanation of these changes is provided through an analysis of the nature and extent of divergence in the basic household characteristics across the continuum of poverty status, using the 'food availability throughout the year' criterion. Based on the above analysis, the report attempts to capture some dynamics and proximate causes of poverty amongst the rural poorest; and finally, summarizes the ensuing implications for policy. Additionally, the report also presents an analysis on divisional variations in terms of some household characteristics. Based on the food availability criterion, the report observes that there are some degree of mobility between the poor and nonpoor and this mobility occurs in both directions. It also claims that a large majority of the extreme poor is found to be locked in their current state of poverty for over generations. The conditions of having fewer earners, poor asset base, limited access to credit and infrastructure, frequent encounters with composite shocks, etc., were mainly found to drive a significant segment of the rural population into severe and long-term poverty.

For Bangladesh food security was synonymous with achieving self-sufficiency in rice production and stabilization in rice prices. The country has made good progress in increasing rice production through technological progress, facilitated by private sector investment in small scale irrigation. But, it is difficult to sustain the progress made in view of the growing pressure of population on scarce land resources. Domestic food grain production remains susceptible to floods and droughts thereby perpetuating the threat of major production shortfalls, inadequate food availability, and vulnerability from fluctuation in prices. The availability of other foods has not increased, and the progress in nutritional outcome has remained slow. Forty percent of the population lives below the poverty line, and income inequality has been worsening. This paper assesses the trends in factors that affect food production, availability of food and their impact on nutrition outcomes. It also probes into the trends in poverty and distribution of income and access to food through markets.

This paper belongs to a series of 14 country case studies spanning Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe. The series is part of the ‘Operationalising Pro-Poor Growth (OPPG)’ work programme, a joint initiative of AFD, BMZ (GTZ, KfW Entwicklungsbank), DFID, and the World Bank. The OPPG work programme aims to provide better advice to governments on policies that facilitate the participation of poor people in the growth process. Other outputs of the OPPG initiative include a joint synthesis report, a note on methodological approaches to analysing the distributional impact of growth, cross-country econometric work, literature reviews, and six synthesis papers on: macroeconomics and structural policies, institutions, labour markets, agriculture and rural development, pro-poor spending, and gender. The country case studies and synthesis papers will be disseminated in 2005.

This study uses data from 1996/97 through 1998/99 to examine the relative efficiency of production of crops in Bangladesh and their comparative advantage in international trade as measured by net economic profitability (the profitability using economic, rather than financial costs and prices), and the domestic resource cost ratio, (the amount of value of non-tradable domestic resources used in production divided by the value of tradable products). The economic profitability analysis demonstrates that Bangladesh has a comparative advantage in domestic production of rice for import substitution. However, at the export parity price, economic profitability of rice is generally less than economic profitability of many non-rice crops, implying that Bangladesh has more profitable options other than production for rice export. Several non-cereal crops, including vegetables, potatoes and onions have financial and economic returns that are as high as or higher than those of High Yielding Variety (HYV) rice. The relatively minor role in cropping systems of these crops despite their higher returns, can largely be attributed to high price risks associated with marketing, suggesting the need for further development of agro-processing industries, rural infrastructure, and marketing networks. Authors' Abstract