Supply and demand situations for major crops and food items in Bangladesh

This study explored historical food availability/supply and the market demand for food. Secondary data was used for analyzing demand-supply gap. The average growth in rice production was 2.9% per year in 1971/72 to 2008/09, of which 93% was contributed by yield growth. The overall growth rate of area under food grain was 0.3% in 1971/72 to 2008/09. The overall food grain production growth rate is higher than population growth rate from 1971/72 to 2008/09. The own price and income elasticities of rice were -0.108 and 0.199 respectively. It was projected that upto 2021, the annual demand for food exceed the supply of food which were -0.28% for rice and -1.76% for wheat. That implies the demands are greater than the supplies for both crops.


Introduction
The yields of crops in per hectare are low in Bangladesh compare to other countries.The farm prices of produces also low which turn in low income from farm and low purchasing power and low access to food.On the other hand, raising food price is a major concerning issue for the government of Bangladesh.For the stable food price and food security government has adopted various strategies such as efforts to increase production, intervention in markets, public distribution, direct sales, increase in import and purchase from local markets for the maintenance of national food security stocks which aims to increase welfare of the poor.
In a subsistence agrarian economy of Bangladesh, domestic food production has an important role to play in the quest for food security.The productivity in the agricultural sector is critically important if agricultural production is to increase at a sufficiently rapid rate to meet escalating demands for food (Hayami and Ruttan, 1985;Mellor, 1976).Major food items in Bangladesh are rice, wheat, pulses, potato, vegetables and fish.These food items contribute almost 85% of the total calorie and protein intake.Rice and wheat alone contribute to 71% and 53% of the total per capita calorie and protein intake respectively (BBS, 2008).Bangladesh has pursued for decades a strategic goal of self-sufficiency in cereal production.The country passed a major milestone in its efforts to achieve food security in the sense of food grain availability at the national level at the end of the 1990s, since for the first time in its history, food grain production exceeded target requirement which is 454 gm/person/day (Hossain et al., 2005).Whatever progress been made would be difficult to sustain it due to high vulnerability of climatic shocks and the growing pressure of population on scarce natural resources thus, yet food security has not been achieved.
The food insecurity of Bangladesh is not simply an economic problem.Reducing the food insecurity problem at national level requires that the food production and marketing system be efficient.The present study examines food availability/supply and the market demand for food and their relationship in terms of dynamic balance from the projection at national level.

Materials and Methods
The study was based on the secondary data from the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), Handbook of Agriculture Statistics, Ministry of Agriculture, Bangladesh Bank (Central Bank) reports, FAOSTAT and other published and unpublished sources.The data used cover the 29 years period from 1980/81 to 2008/09.The non-availability of time series price data prior to 1980/81 is the main reason for selecting the data period from 1980/81.The data are on annual averages because of the lack of monthly data.Descriptive statistics were widely used for reaching the objectives.Projection of food production, requirements and food deficits/surplus situation were also examined by using Ohkawa's equation.
Ohkawa's equation is a very rough estimate of the needed rate of growth in national food requirements.Ohkawa's equation is also crude because Engel's Law has been verified in a number of studies and showing that over time, the proportion of total expenditures allocated to food declines as income rises.However, most low-income consumers expand a larger share of their budgets to food and also buy significantly more food when income increases.Johnston and Mellor (1961) claimed that growth in food demand by population growth alone is substantial.Population growth and industrialization are the major factors for affecting the demand for food.They also reported that not only are there higher rates of population growth in the developing countries but the income elasticity of demand for food is also considerably higher than in the high-income countries.Mellor and Johnston (1984) have used a "food equation" which views in dynamic balance the relationship between food supply and food demand.The food equation is a race between food and population.McCalla (1994) agreed that in addition to population growth, income growth will also increase the demand for food.
There are four different views with regards to the projected trends in production.The conventional view argues the increase in food production must come from increased productivity.The second view is related to the Ohkawa's equation where rates of population growth are added to rates of income growth modified by the income elasticity of demand for food.Then, this rate is compared to the rates of growth in productivity.The model is, therefore, a projection of two compound growth rates where any deviation from these rates either leads to food deficits or food surpluses.A third view is more pessimistic which state future supply trends will be subject to declining fertilizer use, declining investments in agricultural research and increased environmental pressures.A fourth view as stated by Carruthers (1993) who argues that the traditional model of developed countries supplying the world with manufactured goods and financial services and developing countries providing primary products is not sustainable.He argued that in the long run, developing countries will produce manufactured goods and trade them for food from developed countries.
The second view of Ohkawa's equation which provides a quick and reliable figure to project changes in food demand was adopted for this study.The data requirements for this model are more modest which are available in developing countries like Bangladesh.
The basic Ohkawa's (1956) equation is: Where, Γ D is increased/growth in demand, Γ p is growth in population, Γ g is growth in per capita income and λ is income elasticity of food products.In general, people buy more as prices decrease.The elasticity of demand in relation to prices is therefore negative.So, it is necessary to deduce price elasticity from the Ohkawa's equation.If Γ x is variation in prices and λ´ is price elasticity of demand the model is: - ---------------------------(2) Economic theory suggests that the demand for food grain is a function of its price, the price of related goods and the income.Price of related goods is not included in the model because no other single commodity has a large budget share in comparison with rice.Demand function for rice is: where, Q D is quantity demanded at current year (kg/capita/year), PR t is price of rice at current year (Taka/kg) and Y t is Real income (Taka/capita/year).
In addition to find out the elasticities, it was also estimated the market demand for food which is equal to total demand of food minus total distribution of food.Total demand of food is the sum of consumption and end stock.Consumption is equal to total production plus aid, plus import and minus domestic procurement.Retail prices were used for estimating demand elasticity.It is necessary to convert nominal prices into real prices.For that, Consumer Price Index (CPI) is a measure of overall inflation is used for deflating the nominal prices into real prices.It is also widely used deflator for the deflation of nominal values into real values (Shahabuddin, 1987;Alam, 1997 andDorosh, 1999).The formula is: The Analysis is done by using SPSS and Microsoft Excel.The function is estimated following OLS method and the double logarithmic form.The coefficient values indicate the elasticities.The price and income elasticity for wheat has not been estimated but taken from secondary sources.

Results and Discussion
Domestic production: growth in food grain production: Analysis shows that growth rates of food grain production in 1980/81 to 1989/90 were lower at 2.1% a year, but in 1971/72 to 1979/80 growth accelerated to 3.80% a year which was higher than other periods (Table 1).The decline in the production growth rate in 1980/81 to 1989/90 can be attributed to a decline in the area growth rate, but in 1990/91 to 1999/2000 the growth in yield per hectare accelerated from 2.5% to 3.6%.The long term (1971/72 to 2008/09) growth in food grain production was 3.0%, to which wheat contributed a large share with a production growth rate of 7.3%.Bangladesh achieved an impressive growth in wheat production during the period 1971/72 to 1979/80 (26.80%), which was more than ten times higher than the overall growth rate of food grain production; both area and yield per hectare contributed around 50% to this growth.The average growth in rice production was 2.9% per year in 1971/72 to 2008/09, of which 93% was contributed by yield growth.This impressive growth rate was due to the investment in irrigation, increased fertilizer use and adoption of HYV.In between 1971/72 to 1979/80 and 1990/91 to 1999/2000 there were substantial fluctuations in the growth of different varieties of rice production (Table 1).The overall growth rate of area under food grain was 0.3% in 1971/72 to 2008/09.This implies that increases in production need to come mainly from yield increases.
The overall food grain production growth rate is higher than population growth rate from 1971/72 to 2008/09 (Fig. 1).In 1970s, 1990s and 2000s the food grain production growth rates were higher than population growth rates.But in 1980s the population growth rate was higher than food grain production growth rate.It was due to flood and other natural disaster in the country of that time.

Growth of area, production and yield of other major food crops:
The growth rate for production of pulses in 1971/72 to 2008/09 was 1.01%.In 1971/72 to 1979/80 and 2000/01 to 2008/09 both area and production growth rate for pulses was negative.It was mainly due to shift land from pulses to Boro cultivation.From 1980/81 to 1989/90 area, yield and production of potatoes showed negative growth rate (Fig. 2).The production growth rate of vegetable showed increasing trend over the period.
Fish, meat, milk and egg production: Non-cereals are chief sources of protein, mineral and vitamin which remain far below the actual requirements to provide the balanced diet.The nutritional value of fish occupies a significant position in the dietary habits of Bangladeshi people.Fish production increased from 792.67 thousand M. tons in 1971/72 to 2563.30thousand M. tons in 2008/09 (Table 2).Meat, milk and egg production has also increased significantly over the 38 years, but their demand has been growing faster, and therefore, the shortage is still high.In 1992, the Bangladesh government liberalized the markets, allow the private participants to import agricultural food crops.As a result large number of importers have started their business who buy, store, transport and sell food grain throughout the country.Table 3 indicates that over the last two decades, the private import of food grain has increased dramatically.Out of total private food grain import both rice and wheat import increased of that time.

Imports of other crops and animal products:
In addition to decreased in food grain imports, the import of other food crops, fruits and animal products increased over the decades.Due to decreased in area under pulses production, the pulses import increased from 2.54 thousand M. tons in 1981-83 to 522.92 thousand M. tons in 2006-08.Potatoes and vegetables and milk import increased rapidly (Table 4).Food aid: Food aid has played an important role in meeting the domestic demand for food.Bangladesh has received a large amount of food aid since its independence in 1971 and the flow of food aid has a significant role in shaping the food policy.It is showed from the Table 5 that the amount of total food aid decreased over the year.Both rice and wheat food aid declined.Presently, increase in domestic production has resulted in the downward trend in food aid.Therefore, this share has decreased to less than 35% of total imports of food grain with wheat accounting for 98% of the total food aid.  5 and Table 6) and there is a danger that decline in food aid could ultimately lead to a cut in targeted distribution programs.

Domestic Procurement and Distribution:
The volume of food grain procurement increased substantially from 415 thousand M. tons in 1980/81-1989/90 to 1238.3 thousand M. tons in 2000/01-2008/09.Rice constituted the major share of total procurement (Table 6).The higher relative share of rice in total procurement was due to larger increase in rice production.Procurement is one source of the public food distribution.The ratio of procurement over total public distribution has increased over the decades.
Post harvest losses: High post harvest losses indicate reducing food supplies.Farmers also lost their share of income from post harvest losses which are also a constraint to achieve food security in Bangladesh.Post harvest losses depend on the season, crop and level of technological practices adopted for post-harvest handling.The losses can reach as high as 30% (GOB, 2000).Highly seasonal production of fruits, vegetables and spices causes gluts, leading to tremendous amount of crop losses and wastage.Moreover, technical changes occurring in threshing and milling may actually increase food losses (Greely, 1980).Besides direct production loss due to the vagaries of nature, crop losses can be caused by poor knowledge on post-harvest technology for storage, preservation, processing and handling.
The level of avoidable post-harvest losses of stored food grain in Bangladesh is still unacceptably high and varies from 10 to 25%.The loss occurs partly due to insect and fungal attack during storage.Insect losses incurred from 3-15% in stored grains, depending on the commodity and the container used for storage.Pulses and maize had incurred more than 20% losses in four months of storage (Azim, 1980).
Table 7 indicates that the highest percentages post harvest losses occurred in the case of vegetables and fruits (30%) while in the case of cereals it was 13% in 2004-05.Thus, reducing the post harvest loss as much as possible is a vital concerning issue in achieving food security in Bangladesh.Promotion of viable marketing systems to move the produces rapidly from producers to consumers, promotion of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and Integrated Crop Management Program (ICM) to increase crop production and as well as to minimize post-harvest losses and support for investment and training of farmers in improved post-harvest technology (threshing, storing, transporting etc.), especially women's groups could help to minimize post harvest losses and increase food security in the country.Food availability: Total supply of food available in Bangladesh is the sum of the total quantity of foodstuffs produced plus total quantity imported and aid received and adjusted for any change in stocks.
On the utilization side, a distinction is made between the quantity exported (while nil in the case of food grain, pulses and potato), fed to livestock, used for seed, put to manufacture for food use and other uses, losses during storage and transformation (all of these account 10% losses from supply available) and food supply available for human consumption.The per capita supply of each food item available for human consumption is obtained by dividing its respective quantity by related data on the population in respective years.The per capita availability of food grain in Bangladesh shows considerable improvement during the recent years.According to FPMU (2003), the per capita minimum food grain requirement is 454 gms/capita/day.In 2000/01, per capita consumption for the first time has exceeded the per capita requirement (Table 9).This means that there is no consumption gap of food grain in recent years in Bangladesh.The income elasticity is 0.199, which is significant at the 10% level and has positive sign.It indicates that if consumer income increases 1%, the demand for rice also increase 0.199%.The price elasticity of demand varies from -0.12 (Ahmed and Shams, 1993) to -1.32 (Pitt, 1983).Alamgir and Berlage (1973) used national time series data in their study and found price elasticity of rice -0.29.Karim (1983) also used national time series data and found rice price elasticity -0.39.Rice price elasticity in Dorosh (1999) study was -0.15, and Talukder (1989) study was -0.73.Price elasticity of wheat in Talukder (1989) study was -0.88.According to Pitt (1983) study, the elasticity of rice was -1.32 for low income group.He also calculated wheat price elasticity which was -0.72.The price and income elasticities that were found from different authors studies are shown in Table 11.The projected production growth is 2.3% for rice and 3.8% for wheat from 2004/05 to 2020/21.The difference between growth in production and consumption represents the gap of food requirement of the country.A positive figure implies excess supply while a negative figure implies excess demand.So, it is showed from the Table 12 that the both rice and wheat supply-demand gap is negative.Excess demand must be filled up by import.

Conclusions
Domestic food production has an important role to play for food security in Bangladesh.Although the acreage of foodgrain production shrinkage, but production of foodgrain increases due to increase in per acre yield and better management of post harvest losses.
The coefficient of rice price elasticity is -0.108 and the income elasticity is 0.199 both are significant at the 10% level.It is shown from the study that the both rice and wheat supply-demand gap is negative which implies the projected change in demand are greater than supply.This analysis showed that increases in production come mainly from yield increases.So, excess demand should be met up by increasing yield.

Table 2 . Production of fish, meat, milk and egg production (thousand M. tons)
Fig. 1.Population growth rate and total food grain production growth rate over the period Fig. 2. Growth rates of area, yield and production of pulses, potato and vegetables Trend

in imports of major food items: public and private imports:
Imports of food grain in Bangladesh were dominated by public sector in 1971/72-1979/80 and 1981/82-1989/90.Total food grain imports are composed of rice and wheat.Table 3 reveals that wheat constituted the major part of imports for all the decades.The share of wheat in total imports increased from 70% in 1971/72-1979/80 to 95% in 2001/02-2008/09.It is due to comparatively cheaper and more available on the international market.Public food grain imports declined 46% during the 1971/72-2008/09.

Table 5 . Food aid and share of rice and wheat
Source: Authors' calculation data from Department of Food and Ministry of Food and Disaster Note: Food aid includes only grant.There are a number of safety nets programs against floods, cyclone and land erosions that help to insulate the poor from idiosyncratic shocks and to be food secure.One of them is relief programs which aim primarily at relieving immediate distress.These program interventions are typically for a limited period of time and are for targeted at the directly affected households.Eighteen hundred and four thousand M. tons of food was distributed by PFDS (Public Food Distribution System) through various food-based safety net programs in 2000/2001 to 2008/09 (Table6).Food aid resources supplied about 17% of total PFDS distribution in years 2000/01 to 2008/09 (Table

Table 8
reveals that the per capita availability of food grain, fruits, fish and animal product increased slowly.In 1991-93, pulses, potatoes, vegetables were 13.05 gms, 25.54 gms and 32.15 gms while in 2006-08, it were 13.15 gms, 73.70 gms and 53.97 gms respectively.But fruit availability decreased over the periods.Fish, meat, milk and egg availability shows increasing trends.

Table 10 . Estimated results of demand function for rice
The equation/ 'Income and price elasticities' were estimated from the market demand function by using double log function.Quantity of market demand is the dependent variable.

Table 11 . Estimates of price elasticities and income elasticities for rice and wheat in Bangladesh and comparison with other studies
Own price elasticities Income elasticities

Table 12 . Projected annual rates of growth in food grain requirements, production growth rates, and demand-supply gaps, 2020/21
Projected consumption growth was calculated from the equation (2). Notes: