Food Security in South Asia: Status, Challenges and Policy Considerations

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.18278/wfp.1.2.6
• Date: 01 September 2014
• Author: Mahabub Hossain
• Published date: 01 September 2014

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World Food Policy - Volume 1, Number 2 - Fall 2014

South Asia has made substantial progress in increasing production of rice

and wheat, the staple food in the region. India and Pakistan has become

major rice exporting countries and have eliminated the import of wheat. Sri

Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal has also reduced import dependence on rice.

But, poverty levels are still high, and many people cannot access food from

the market. Child mal-nutrition in the region is still among the highest

in the world. e region must continue to focus on development and diu-

sion of improved technologies, particularly for the rainfed regions, and im-

proved nutrition through diversication of food and improved childcare.

Keywords: (JEL Classication): Agriculture (O13), Food security (Q18), South

Asia (O18), Poverty (I32), Nutrition (I12)

Introduction

Food security exists when all people, at

all times, have physical and economic

access to sucient, safe and nutritious

food that meets the dietary needs and food

preferences for an active and healthy life”

(FAO 2006). Achieving food and nutrition

security requires coordinated action in a

number of fronts: a) increasing food avail-

ability through faster agricultural growth,

more ecient markets and less restrictive

trade both within the country and interna-

tionally; b) improving poor people’s access

to food by increasing their employment and

remuneration, combating social and gen-

der exclusion, reducing price volatility, de-

veloping resilience against external shocks,

and extending safety nets and social protec-

tion to the weakest sections of the society;

and c)improving nutritional status through

improved healthcare, provision of safe wa-

ter, improved sanitation and hygiene, and

awareness raising for proper child feeding

practices.

South Asia has over 420 million peo-

ple living on less than one dollar a day and

accounts for over 40% of the world’s hungry

people (Mittal and Sethi 2009). It has the

highest proportion of undernourished peo-

ple (300 million), and of under-nutrition

among under ve children—even higher

than most countries in sub-Saharan Afri-

ca. Under-nutrition is a key mechanism by

which poverty is transmitted from genera-

tion to generation. It constrains the cogni-

tive and physical development of children,

results in signicant loss of human poten-

tial that in turn adversely aects the re-

gions long-term economic growth. Despite

strong economic growth in many countries

in South Asia over the last two decades,

under-nutrition have only reduced slightly

and is a major cause of concern for the pol-

icy makers.

is paper presents an overview of

the progress made in food availability, ac-

cess and nutrition, and the challenges and

issues for achieving and sustaining food se-

Food Security in South Asia: Status, Challenges and Policy

Considerations

Mahabub Hossain1

1 Executive Director, BRAC, Bangladesh; former Head, Social Sciences Division, International Rice Research

Institute

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Food Security in South Asia: Status, Challenges and Policy Considerations

curity in South Asia. It outlines the current

situation, key issues, and important poli-

cy choices in the region to meet the chal-

lenge. It has three sections, an overview of

the food and nutrition security situation,

the main challenges facing the region with

regard to achieving food security, and sug-

gested actions that policy makers may wish

to consider for improving the situation par-

ticularly with regard to regional coopera-

tion.

Food Security and Nutrition Situa-

tion

Food availability

Food can be made available to the mar-

ket through adequate domestic pro-

duction and or through imports. Until

recently most countries in the region had

limited access to foreign exchange. Because

of this South Asia followed basically a policy

of self-suciency in domestic production to

meet the food needs of the people.

Despite high pressure of population

on limited land and water resources and

an agrarian structure dominated by small

and marginal farmers (except North-west-

ern India and Pakistan Punjab), South Asia

has made remarkable progress in food pro-

duction over the last 40 years, transform-

ing the region from a food decient to a

food-self-sucient region. Indeed, India

and Pakistan have become major exporters

of rice in the world market. Between 1970–

72 and 2011–12, wheat production tripled

and rice production more than doubled,

exceeding the population growth which in-

creased 2.1 times from 720 million in 1970

to nearly 1.6 billion in 2011 (Jansen and

Ahmed 2010). e record of growth in rice

and wheat production in the countries of

the region can be noted in Table 1.

Country/crop Production (%/year) Productivity (crop yield) (%/year)

Rice

1980-00

2000-12

1980-00

2000-12

Afghanistan

Not estimated

3.7

Not estimated

2.1

Bangladesh

2.2

3.2

2.2

2.9

India

2.9

1.3

2.8

1.2

Nepal 2.6 0.7 1.7 1.1

Pakistan 1.9 3.6 0.8 2.1

Sri Lanka 0.7 4.1 0.9 2.4

South Asia 2.7 1.8 2.2 1.7

Wheat

Afghanistan Not estimated 3.7 Not estimated 1.8

India 3.7 1.1 2.8 1.0

Pakistan 2.8 2.1 1.9 1.1

South Asia 3.4 1.6 2.6 1.1



Table 1: Growth (%/year) of production and productivity of rice and wheat, 1980-2012

Source: Estimating logarithmic trend lines on time series data in the USDA database