It is incredibly heartening to know that Bangladesh, once a nation that was nearly crippled by a historical famine back in 1974, is now steadily climbing the Global Hunger Index. In fact, our nation is ahead of some of our most immediate neighbours such as India and Pakistan in terms of ranking.
Hunger has, unfortunately, been a problem that our nation has had to grapple with ever since independence, and while our progress in the Global Hunger Index can be considered a standard with which we can measure how well we are doing compared to other nations, unless and until we can overcome our own problems with food scarcity and insecurity, such progress will mean little.
A good case in point would be the sheer shock that our nation had to endure due to the supply chain of essential goods being halted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year -- the incident led many of the nations with whom Bangladesh retains trade relations with to withhold exports of staples such as wheat.
Needless to say, Bangladesh will need to become increasingly self reliant when it comes to food production.
While scarcity is an important aspect to tackle in the war against hunger, we must also take into cognizance the issue of adulteration. Adulteration of food, unfortunately, has maintained its presence as a threat to the health of the general population, and it is a problem that spares no one. The government must start ramping up food testing and indeed make it a core pillar of any and all plans to end hunger such as the Zero Hunger by 2030 SDG.
Our nation’s march towards middle income status cannot shirk the responsibility of ensuring that each and every citizen has enough to eat to lead a dignified life.
