Bangladesh: Food Security Monitoring October - December 2023

Employment opportunities during the harvest month impacted the overall food security situation.

The food security situation improved by 3 percent compared to the previous month. There had been some income increase and stability in purchasing power due to harvest-time agricultural income. The impact differed on livelihood groups, especially daily labourers who depended on shorttime agricultural income sources. Small and marginal farm households also reported income increases in this month. Food insecurity continued to improve nationwide in all the divisions, although some hard times were reported in a few areas due to political hartal and blockades. The households with losses and damages due to heavy rainfall in the last months started recovering their income losses due to the employment opportunities for the rice and vegetable harvest. The construction workers also reported income increases due to the start of the new construction work after the rainy season. On the contrary, garment workers and some petty traders reported high-income losses due to nationwide blockades and the closing of garment factories due to the global crisis.

Households with female heads and disabilities continued to suffer and did not see any improvement in their struggle for food security and well-being. The survey revealed that 30 percent of low-income households were food insecure, compared to 8 percent in medium-income households and 3 percent in high-income households. Despite improvement, high food prices, high health expenditures, and debt remained the driving factors of food insecurity. Concerns over high food prices stayed the same, and some 90 percent of households said the rise was their deepest concern and significantly affected their well-being, regardless of their increased income levels. The percentage of households that relied on negative coping strategies was slightly reduced due to income increases. Still, more than six in ten households applied livelihood-based coping strategies such as borrowing money, selling productive assets, or going into debt to buy food. On average, the percentage of households adopting stress and emergency increased over the season. Households continued relying both on food-based and livelihood-based coping strategies.