The food price hike in 2011 has forced the poor to work harder, eat less, live more frugally than ever before, and draw on any resources or assets that they have to cope with the situation.
It was revealed in a research report released on Wednesday by the Institute of Development Studies and Oxfam GB at the latter's office at Banani in the capital. The study was conducted in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Kenya, and Zambia.
The researchers, who used focus group discussion and other participatory tools, covered two communities at Natun Bazar in Dhaka and Dhamuirhat in Naogaon district that they had visited earlier in 2009 and 2010.
Researcher Naomi Hossain of the IDS relayed to the report launching ceremony the perception of the people that commodity price hike had affected their overall life and development.
She said the situation affected the poor but benefited the rich and the middlemen.
Although the general perception is that if the food grain price goes up the farmers get benefited but the picture is opposite in Bangladesh, she said, adding that the middle and small farmers had to take loan in the beginning of cultivation and to sell their harvest at a lower rate to repay that loan.
Naomi said the food price spiral forced the poor to spend less on personal items like clothes and cosmetics and scale down their social life. Some people are eating less and going hungry and more often they shift for lower-quality and more unpalatable food and less diversified diet.
The situation also compelled a good number of people to migrate to big cities, leaving behind their ancestral homes, said the research report.
According to it, the government's social safety net programmes, like the open market sales and fair price card programmes, aimed at providing the poor with rice and flour at low rates could not play any significant role to improve the overall situation.
A weak food management system is now prevailing in the country, the report observed. The global food price hike, the government's weak monitoring system to control food prices, and the practice of millers, middlemen, and affluent farmers to stock up food items are the main reasons of the weakness, it added.
The report suggested taking an effective, accountable, and far-sighted food management policy by the government for the domestic market and getting attached with more developed and integrated systems at the international level.
The government should strengthen its food price monitoring system and bring the real poor and marginalised people under the social safety net to cope with the situation changed due to the food price hike, the report recommended, adding that the government also should take mid- and long-term plans to increase the income of the vulnerable communities.
Campaign for Sustainable Rural Livelihood member secretary Ziaul Haque Mukta said, if the situation was not tackled properly, it would become worse in the future. She reminded the session that the poor and marginal farmers met 82 per cent of the country's demand for food and said, therefore, they should get specific assistance from the government.
Oxfam GB policy officer AKM Nazrul Islam and media and communications coordinator Mubashar Hasan also spoke on the occasion.
Source : New Age
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