The stability of food supply chains is crucial to the food security of people around the world. Since the beginning of 2020, this stability has been undergoing one of the most vigorous pressure tests ever due to the COVID-19 outbreak. From a mere health issue, the pandemic has turned into an economic threat to food security globally in the forms of lockdowns, economic decline, food trade restrictions, and rising food inflation. It is safe to assume that the novel health crisis has badly struck the least developed and developing economies, where people are particularly vulnerable to hunger and malnutrition. However, due to the recency of the COVID-19 problem, the impacts of macroeconomic fluctuations on food insecurity have remained scantily explored. In this study, the authors attempted to bridge this gap by revealing interactions between the food security status of people and the dynamics of COVID-19 cases, food trade, food inflation, and currency volatilities. The study was performed in the cases of 45 developing economies distributed to three groups by the level of income. The consecutive application of the autoregressive distributed lag method, Yamamoto's causality test, and variance decomposition analysis allowed the authors to find the food insecurity effects of COVID-19 to be more perceptible in upper-middle-income economies than in the least developed countries. In the latter, food security risks attributed to the emergence of the health crisis were mainly related to economic access to adequate food supply (food inflation), whereas in higher-income developing economies, availability-sided food security risks (food trade restrictions and currency depreciation) were more prevalent. The approach presented in this paper contributes to the establishment of a methodology framework that may equip decision-makers with up-to-date estimations of health crisis effects on economic parameters of food availability and access to staples in food-insecure communities.

Impacts of COVID-19 on Trade and Economic Aspects of Food Security: Evidence from 45 Developing Countries.

This paper therefore analyzes agriculture and nutrition linkages in Bangladesh, a country that achieved rapid growth in rice productivity at a relatively late stage in Asiaâ€™s Green Revolution, as well as unheralded progress against undernutrition. To do so the authors create a synthetic panel that aggregates nutritional data from five rounds of the Demographic Health Surveys (1997 to 2011) with district-level estimates of rice yields. Using various panel estimators, they find rice yields significantly explain weight gain in young children but not linear growth. The authors further show that rice yields have large and positive effects on the timely introduction of complementary foods for young children but not on dietary diversity indicators and that this complementary feeding indicator is positively associated with child weight gain but not with linear growth.

Agriculture, nutrition, and the Green Revolution in Bangladesh:

The global digital divide is usually measured in terms of differences between rich and poor countries in the extent to which they use ICTs in general and the Internet in particular. Such a view of the problem, however, ignores the fact that there are all kinds of ways in which poor, illiterate persons in developing countries benefit from the Internet without any use of computers and Internet connectivity. Most of these benefits occur as a result of intermediaries who, in one way or another, transfer relevant parts of the knowledge available from the technology to recipients in a form that is relevant to their specific needs. Using India as an illustration of this argument, we find that usage understates actual beneficiaries by at least 30 percent. On the basis of this finding, we suggest that a reconstrued notion of the digital divide be based on usage as well as other more indirect forms of benefit from the Internet in developing countries. To this end, much more needs to be known about these other forms of benefit in a large sample of countries in addition to India.

Reconstructing the digital divide from the perspective of a large, poor, developing country

The impacts of climate variability and change are being felt by various sectors of economic life, especially the agricultural sector. It is for this reason that this study sought to investigate how agro-ecological and climate-smart systems like agroforestry could contribute towards enhancing the resilience of the agricultural sector in general and smallholder farmers in particular, faced with the climate change menace in Cameroon. Household and field surveys were the main primary data collection methods. Findings showed that variability and changes in climate parameters were real, and a plethora of agroforestry practices categorized into agrosilvicultural, silvopastoral and agrosilvopastoral systems were practiced by smallholder farmers. Agroforestry products and services like food, fuelwood, building materials, and erosion control were identified by smallholder farmers as contributing towards the strengthening of their resilience to climate change impacts. The major groups of agroforestry tree/shrub species integrated on smallholder farm plots were fruit trees, fuelwood trees/shrubs and trees/shrubs used as building materials. Results from Chi square statistic, Kruskal–Wallis test, and logistic regression analysis (p < 0.05) revealed that agroforestry practices especially home gardens with animals, home gardens, trees on grazing lands, and coffee-based agroforestry played a significant positive role in enhancing smallholder farmers’ resilience to the impacts of climate variability and change. The study therefore recommends that agroforestry be prioritized in national and international policy formulations owing to its ability to enhance smallholder farmers’ resilience faced with a fast changing climate.

Enhancement of resilience to climate variability and change through agroforestry practices in smallholder farming systems in Cameroon

The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), launched in February 2006 was renamed in October 02, 2009 as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (henceforth, MGNREGA). It is an anti-poverty flagship programme of the Government of India. The key purpose of MGNREGA is to enhance wage employment in the rural areas by providing at least 100 days of guaranteed employment to every household in a financial year. The MGNREGA implementation status report for the financial year 2012-2013 unfolds that the programme has already provided employment to 44.9 million households across 28 districts and five union territories. Hence, it is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the impact of MGNREGA on women beneficiaries. A plethora of research argues that MGNREGA, which promotes inclusive growth, is a vehicle of change, a lifeline for rural women. So far, however, there has been very little discussion about the impact of MGNREGA on women beneficiaries of Assam. This research is an attempt to examine the participation of women in MGNREGA, Assam. It critically looks at the issues, problems and challenges confronted by the women while working at MGNREGA. Written from a feminist perspective on gender, poverty and women’s empowerment, the research seeks to address the problems of the women beneficiaries through their lived experiences. For this, we conducted in-depth interviews with the women beneficiaries in the months of August and September, 2009 in four remote areas namely, Burka, Chandrapur, Barbhang and Muguriya, the first two situated in Kamrup, while the third and the fourth in Barpeta districts of Assam, where the programme of MGNREGA is on-going. The findings of the research suggest measures so that the programme can be made more effective in the long run.

A Mirage or a Rural Life Line? Analysing the Impact of Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Act on Women Beneficiaries of Assam

Agriculture is one of the most important sectors in Bangladesh which could be benefited tremendously with the application of ICTs. In that regards, extensive use of modern information technologies need to be promoted to farm level for the transfer of technologies and information in a cost effective manner. The focus of this study was on the attitude and level of knowledge of farmers towards Information and Communication Technology as a source of information use in extension service delivery in some selected places of Mymensingh sadar Upazila. Validated interview schedule was used for data collection and appropriate statistical tools were used to analyze the collected data. Simple random sampling technique was used in the selection of ninety (90) farmers as the sample of the study. The results showed that the majority (37.8%) of the farmers considerate the information related to input service and availability is most appropriate information. It was also found that half of the farmers (50.0%) had medium level of knowledge on ICTs. Furthermore, they had highly favorable attitude (58.9%) towards the Information and Communication Technology. In addition, age of the respondents, level of education, farming experience, farmers’ perception on their information need and farmers’ knowledge were found to be the potential factors of enhancing their attitude towards ICTs. Moreover, lack of electricity (mean value=2.33) was the major constraints faced by the farmers associated with ICTs application. Finally, while planning programs for the development of ICTs sector, policy makers should consider the above mention factors

https://euacademic.org/UploadArticle/1273.pdf

Attitude and Level of Knowledge of Farmers on ICT based Farming

Understanding the constraints and its related factors in tilapia (Oreochromis sp.) fish culture at farm level: A case from Bangladesh

Investment in ICTs has not always yielded the expected results due to inadequate usage of ICTs by extension staffs. Our study aims to present a more general account of the use of ICTs and preferences of extension and advisory workers at the grassroots level. Following the technology acceptance model (TAM) and Dillman survey method, a google form was used to collect data from 131 sub-district level extension officers covering 48 (out of 64) districts of Bangladesh. Descriptive statistics and structural equation modeling was used to analyse the data and test the complex causal relationship of TAM components. Results revealed that the extension and advisory workers obtained ICT tools from the extension organization but received insufficient organizational supports to purchase internet packages, maintenance costs, and training to continue the use of it. Factor like perceived usefulness of ICTs positively influenced the extension workers' intention to use ICT-based information systems. A better understanding of the underlying reasoning behind the intention to use ICTs could aid future intervention design and facilitate ICT adoption in extension services in Bangladesh and beyond. 

Application of the technology acceptance model to assess the use and preferences of ICTs among field-level extension officers in Bangladesh

Purpose: Participatory forest management initiatives in Madhupur Sal Forest in Bangladesh are characterized by the coexistence of diverse types of advisory service providers. Despite a decade of im...

Assessment of a pluralistic advisory system: the case of Madhupur Sal Forest in Bangladesh

First paragraph:
The COVID-19 pandemic has created a global health crisis, and the long-term impact of the pan­demic is predicted to reach far beyond today. In a lower-middle-income country with upward economic growth, such as Bangladesh, it is essential first to understand the present situation in order to create a proper recovery plan. Bangladesh has made significant progress in poverty reduction over the last two decades. Its poverty rate dropped to 23.2% in 2016 from 48.9% in 2000 (Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics [BBS], 2018), which has also helped improve the country’s food security status. Bangladesh has made remarkable progress over the last few years (Roy, Dev, & Sheheli, 2019) in most of the four dimensions of food security: food availability, food access, food utilization, and food stability. . . .

/pdf/covid-19-and-food-security-in-bangladesh-a-chance-to-look-50bzobzqeo.pdf

Khondokar Humayun Kabir

Papers

Attitude and Level of Knowledge of Farmers on ICT based Farming

Understanding the constraints and its related factors in tilapia (Oreochromis sp.) fish culture at farm level: A case from Bangladesh

Application of the technology acceptance model to assess the use and preferences of ICTs among field-level extension officers in Bangladesh

Assessment of a pluralistic advisory system: the case of Madhupur Sal Forest in Bangladesh

COVID-19 and food security in Bangladesh: A chance to look back at what is done and what can be done