Advertisement

Agriculture and Human Values

, Volume 35, Issue 2, pp 473–487 | Cite as

Moving away from technocratic framing: agroecology and food sovereignty as possible alternatives to alleviate rural malnutrition in Bangladesh

  • Manoj Misra
Article
First Online:
Accepted:
  • 434 Downloads

Abstract

Bangladesh continues to experience stubbornly high levels of rural malnutrition amid steady economic growth and poverty reduction. The policy response to tackling malnutrition shows an overwhelmingly technocratic bias, which depoliticizes the broader question of how the agro-food regime is structured. Taking an agrarian and human rights-based approach, this paper argues that rural malnutrition must be analyzed as symptomatic of a deepening agrarian crisis in which the obsession with productivity increases and commercialization overrides people’s democratic right to culturally appropriate, good, nutritious food. Using qualitative insights from a case study of three villages, this research illustrates how agricultural modernization and commercialization reproduce rural malnutrition by degrading local biodiversity and the rural poor’s access to nutrient-rich diets. In so doing, it undermines the official discourse’s simplistic and literal reading of malnutrition as a pathological health condition resulting from the mere absence of certain micronutrients in the human body, and thus questions the adequacy of the proposed solutions. Instead, this research suggests that solving malnutrition in large part involves facilitating the rural poor’s access to nutritious diets through democratizing and reorganizing the agriculture sector in a manner that is eco-friendly and unconstrained by market imperatives. It cautiously advances agroecology and food sovereignty as possible alternatives, while recognizing that overcoming the challenges agrarian class conflict, gender disparity and urban–rural divide pose would not be easy.

Keywords

Agroecology Biodiversity Capitalist agriculture Food security Food sovereignty Malnutrition Bangladesh 

Abbreviations

FAO

Food and agriculture organization

FPMU

Food planning and monitoring unit

GDP

Gross domestic product

GoB

Government of Bangladesh

GR

Green revolution

MDG

Millennium development goal

NGO

Non-governmental organization

P2015DA

Post 2015 development agenda

This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access.

Notes

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Hankuk University of Foreign Studies Research Fund. My deepest gratitude goes to Juel, Kamrul, Mehedi, and Milon for helping me gain access to the research sites. I sincerely thank Daniel, Julia, Saee, Theresa, and the participants of 2015 ADI Food, Feeding, and Eating in and out of Asia conference at the University of Copenhagen for their insightful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. I also gratefully acknowledge the two anonymous reviewers and the editor for their valuable suggestions and feedback.

References

  1. Agarwal, B. 2014. Food sovereignty, food security and democratic choice: Critical contradictions, difficult conciliations. Journal of Peasant Studies 41 (6): 1247–1268.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  2. Ahmed, M. 1995. Biodiversity conservation of Bangladesh. In Compilation of theme papers on environmental studies. Dhaka: Bangladesh Technical Education Board.Google Scholar
  3. Akram-Lodhi, A. H. 2013. Hungry for change: Farmers, food justice and the agrarian question. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing.Google Scholar
  4. Akram-Lodhi, A. H. 2015. Accelerating towards food sovereignty. Third World Quarterly 36 (3): 563–583.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  5. Allen, P. 2008. Mining for justice in the food system: Perceptions, practices, and possibilities. Agriculture and Human Values 25 (2): 157–161.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  6. Alonso-Fradejas, A., S. M. Borras Jr, T. Holmes, E. Holt-Giménez, and M. J. Robbins. 2015. Food sovereignty: Convergence and contradictions, conditions and challenges. Third World Quarterly 36 (3): 431–448.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  7. Asian, Development Bank. 2014. Bangladesh: Agribusiness Development Project. Completion Report. Project No: 33224. https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/project-document/82385/33224-013-pcr.pdf Accessed 29 Nov 2017.
  8. Azim, M. E., M. C. J. Verdegem, H. Khatoon, M. A. Wahab, A. A. Van Dam, and M. C. M. Beveridge. 2002. A comparison of fertilization, feeding and three periphyton substrates for increasing fish production in freshwater pond aquaculture in Bangladesh. Aquaculture 212 (1): 227–243.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  9. Badgley, C., J. Moghtader, E. Quintero, E. Zakem, M. J. Chappell, K. Aviles-Vazquez, … and I. Perfecto. 2007. Organic agriculture and the global food supply. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems 22 (2): 86–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  10. Banerjee, A. V., P. J. Gertler, and M. Ghatak. 2002. Empowerment and efficiency: Tenancy reform in West Bengal. Journal of Political Economy 110 (2): 239–280.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  11. Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics. 2013. District statistics 2011 Panchagarh (vol. 1 ed.). Dhaka: BBS, Ministry of Planning, GoB.Google Scholar
  12. Belton, B., M. Karim, S. Thilsted, K. Murshed-E-Jahan, W. Collis, and M. Phillips. 2011. Review of aquaculture and fish consumption in Bangladesh. Penang: The WorldFish Center.Google Scholar
  13. Belton, B., I. J. M. Asseldonk, and S. R. Bush. 2017. Domestic crop booms, livelihood pathways and nested transitions: Charting the implications of Bangladesh’s pangasius boom. Journal of Agrarian Change 17 (4): 694–714.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  14. Bernstein, H. 2009. Agrarian questions from transition to globalization. In Peasants and globalization: Political economy, rural transformation and the agrarian question, eds. H. Akram-Lodhi, and C. Kay, 239–261. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
  15. Bernstein, H. 2010. Class dynamics of agrarian change. vol. 1. Sterling, VA: Kumarian Press.Google Scholar
  16. Bernstein, H. 2014. Food sovereignty via the ‘peasant way’: A sceptical view. Journal of Peasant Studies 41 (6): 1031–1063.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  17. Borras, S. M. Jr, and J. C. Franco. 2010. Food sovereignty and redistributive land policies: Exploring linkages, identifying challenges. In Food Sovereignty: Reconnecting food, nature and community, eds. H. Wittman, A. A. Desmarais, and N. Wiebe, pp. 106–119. Nova Scotia: Fernwood Publishing.Google Scholar
  18. Carolan, M. 2012. The sociology of food and agriculture. London; UK: Routledge.Google Scholar
  19. De Schutter, O. 2011. Agroecology and the right to food: Report presented at the 16th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council. Geneva: United Nations Human Rights Council.Google Scholar
  20. Deshwara, M. 2017. May 6. Flood-hit Haor Areas in Sunamganj: Farmers turning into labourers. The Daily Star. Back page. http://www.thedailystar.net/backpage/farmers-turning-labourers-1401445. Accessed 07 June 2017.
  21. Desmarais, A. A. 2007. La vía Campesina: Globalization and the power of peasants. Halifax: Fernwood.Google Scholar
  22. Farmers unhappy for too low prices of maize. 2014. The Daily Star. http://www.thedailystar.net/farmers-unhappy-for-too-low-prices-of-maize-32703. Accessed 5 June 2015.
  23. Faruque, M. O. 2017. Neoliberal resource governance and counter-hegemonic social movement in Bangladesh. Social Movement Studies 16 (2): 254–259.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  24. Feldman, S. 2003. Paradoxes of institutionalisation: The depoliticisation of Bangladeshi NGOs. Development in Practice 13 (1): 5–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  25. Food and Agriculture Organization [FAO]. 1996. World food summit: Rome declaration on world food security and world food summit plan of action. Rome: FAO.Google Scholar
  26. Food and Agriculture Organization [FAO]. 2012. Fishery and aquaculture statistics 2012. Rome: FAO.Google Scholar
  27. Food Planning and Monitoring Unit [FPMU]. 2008. National food policy plan of action (2008–2015). Dhaka: Ministry of Food and Disaster Management.Google Scholar
  28. Food Planning and Monitoring Unit [FPMU]. 2012. Food security policy brief, strengthen diversification to further improve food and nutrition security. Dhaka: Ministry of Food and Disaster Management.Google Scholar
  29. Food Planning and Monitoring Unit [FPMU]. 2013. Sustainability of groundwater use for irrigation in Bangladesh. Dhaka: Ministry of Food and Disaster Management.Google Scholar
  30. Friedmann, H. 2005. From colonialism to green capitalism: Social movements and emergence of food regimes. In New directions in the sociology of global development. Research in rural sociology and development, eds. F. H. Buttel, and P. McMichael, vol. 11, 229–267. Oxford: Elsevier.Google Scholar
  31. Government of Bangladesh [GoB]. 2008. National food policy plan of action (2008–15). Dhaka: FPMU, MoFDM.Google Scholar
  32. Government of Bangladesh [GoB]. 2012a. Export policy 2012–15. Dhaka: Ministry of Commerce.Google Scholar
  33. Government of Bangladesh [GoB]. 2012b. The sixth five year plan (2011–2015): Accelerating growth and reducing poverty (part one). Dhaka: Planning Commission, Ministry of Planning.Google Scholar
  34. Government of Bangladesh [GoB]. 2013a. National agriculture policy. Dhaka: Ministry of Agriculture.Google Scholar
  35. Government of Bangladesh [GoB]. 2013b. Post 2015 development agenda: Bangladesh proposal to the UN. Dhaka: Planning Commission.Google Scholar
  36. Government of Bangladesh [GoB]. 2015. Bangladesh economic review 2015. Dhaka: Ministry of Finance.Google Scholar
  37. Guthman, J. 2014. Agrarian dreams: The paradox of organic farming in California. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
  38. Holt-Gimenez, E., and M. A. Altieri. 2013. Agroecology, food sovereignty, and the new green revolution. Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems 37 (1): 90–102.Google Scholar
  39. Iannotti, L., K. Cunningham, and M. Ruel. 2009. Improving diet quality and micronutrient nutrition: Homestead food production in Bangladesh. IFPRI Discussion Paper 00928. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute.Google Scholar
  40. IUCN. 2001. Bangladesh: State of the environment 2001. Dhaka: IUCN.Google Scholar
  41. Jansen, K. 2015. The debate on food sovereignty theory: Agrarian capitalism, dispossession and agroecology. The Journal of Peasant Studies 42 (1): 213–232.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  42. Karim, L. 2011. Microfinance and its discontents: Women in debt in Bangladesh. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  43. Kerr, R. B., P. R. Berti, and L. Shumba. 2011. Effects of a participatory agriculture and nutrition education project on child growth in northern Malawi. Public Health Nutrition 14 (8): 1466–1472.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  44. Lang, T. 2009. Reshaping the food system for ecological public health. Journal of Hunger and Environmental Nutrition 4 (3–4): 315–335.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  45. Lang, T., and G. Rayner. 2012. Ecological public health: The 21st century’s big idea? An essay by Tim Lang and Geof Rayner. BMJ 345 (7872): 17–20.Google Scholar
  46. Ludden, D. 2005. Development regimes in South Asia: History and the governance conundrum. Economic and Political Weekly 40 (37): 4042–4051.Google Scholar
  47. Mann, S. A., and J. M. Dickinson. 1978. Obstacles to the development of a capitalist agriculture. The Journal of Peasant Studies 5 (4): 466–481.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  48. Maxwell, J. A. 1996. Qualitative research design: An interactive approach. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
  49. Maxwell, S., and M. Smith. 1992. Household food security: A conceptual review. In Household food security: Concepts, indicators, measurements, eds. S. Maxwell, and T. Frankenberger., Rome: IFAD and UNICEF.Google Scholar
  50. Mazhar, F., D. Buckles, P. Satheesh, and F. Akhter. 2007. Food sovereignty and uncultivated biodiversity in South Asia: Essays on the poverty of food policy and the wealth of the social landscape. New Delhi: Academic Foundation.Google Scholar
  51. McIntyre, B. D., H. R. Herren, J. Wakhungu, and R. T. Watson, eds. 2009. Agriculture at a crossroads. The global report of the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science, and Technology. Washington, DC: Island Press: [IAASTD].Google Scholar
  52. McMichael, P. 2006. Peasant prospects in the neoliberal age. New Political Economy 11 (3): 407–418.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  53. McMichael, P. 2009. Food sovereignty, social reproduction and the agrarian question. In Peasants and globalization: Political economy, rural transformation and the agrarian question, eds. H. Akram-Lodhi, and C. Kay, 288–312. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
  54. McMichael, P. 2010. Food sovereignty in movement: Addressing the triple crisis. In Food Sovereignty: Reconnecting food, nature and community, eds. H. Wittman, A. A. Desmarais and N. Wiebe, 169–185. Nova Scotia: Fernwood Publishing.Google Scholar
  55. McMichael, P. 2015. A comment on Henry Bernstein’s way with peasants, and food sovereignty. Journal of Peasant Studies 42 (1): 193–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  56. Miah, H. (Undated). Agriculture sector development strategy: Background paper for preparation of 7th five year plan. Dhaka: Government of Bangladesh.Google Scholar
  57. Ministry of Environment and Forests. 2012. Rio + 20: Bangladesh report on sustainable development. Dhaka: MoEF.Google Scholar
  58. Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. 2010. Health population & nutrition sector development plan (HPNSDP). Dhaka: Planning Wing.Google Scholar
  59. Misra, M. 2012. Does government intervention matter? Revisiting recent rice price increases in Bangladesh. Perspectives on Global Development and Technology 11 (1): 112–130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  60. Misra, M. 2014. “Through the Valley and Shadow of Death”: Microcredit, neoliberal agriculture and peasant dispossession in Bangladesh. Proceedings of the 109th Annual American Sociological Association Meeting. San Francisco, CA.Google Scholar
  61. Misra, M. 2017a. Smallholder agriculture and climate change adaptation in Bangladesh: Questioning the technological optimism. Climate and Development 9 (4): 337–347.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  62. Misra, M. 2017b. Is peasantry dead? Neoliberal reforms, the state and agrarian change in Bangladesh. Journal of Agrarian Change 17 (3): 594–611.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  63. Mookerjea, S., and M. Misra. 2017. Coal Power and the sundarbans: Subaltern resistance and convergent crises. In Against colonization and rural dispossession: Local resistance in South and East Asia, the Pacific and Africa, ed. D. Kapoor, 164–183. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
  64. Moore, J. 2015. Capitalism in the web of life: Ecology and the accumulation of capital. London: Verso.Google Scholar
  65. NIPORT [National Institute of Population Research and Training]. 2015. Bangladesh demographic and health survey 2014: Key indicators. Dhaka: NIPORT.Google Scholar
  66. Paprocki, K. 2016. ‘Selling Our Own Skin:’ Social dispossession through microcredit in rural Bangladesh. Geoforum 74: 29–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  67. Paprocki, K., and J. Cons. 2014. Life in a shrimp zone: Aqua-and other cultures of Bangladesh’s coastal landscape. Journal of Peasant Studies 41 (6): 1109–1130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  68. Park, C. M. Y., and B. White, and Julia. 2015. We are not all the same: Taking gender seriously in food sovereignty discourse. Third World Quarterly 36 (3): 584–599.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  69. Patel, R. 2009. Food sovereignty. Journal of Peasant Studies 36 (3): 663–706.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  70. Patel, R. 2013. The long green revolution. The Journal of Peasant Studies 40 (1): 1–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  71. Patel, R., R. B. Kerr, L. Shumba, and L. Dakishoni. 2015. Cook, eat, man, woman: Understanding the new alliance for food security and nutrition, nutritionism and its alternatives from Malawi. The Journal of Peasant Studies 42 (1): 21–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  72. Pimbert, M. 2009. Towards food sovereignty. London: International Institute for Environment and Development.Google Scholar
  73. Pinstrup-Andersen, P. 2000. Foreward. In Out of the shadows of famine: Evolving food markets and food policy in Bangladesh, R. Ahmed, S. Haggblade, and T. Chowdhury, eds. (p 25). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
  74. Pokrant, B. 2014. Brackish water shrimp farming and the growth of aquatic monocultures in Coastal Bangladesh. In Historical perspectives of fisheries exploitation in the Indo-Pacific, eds. J. Christensen, and M. Tull, 107–132. Dordrecht: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  75. Rahman, S. 2003. Farm-level pesticide use in Bangladesh: Determinants and awareness. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 95 (1): 241–252.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  76. Rahman, M., and S. Minkin. 2007. Net benefits: The ecological restoration of inland fisheries in Bangladesh. In Reclaiming nature: Environmental justice and ecological restoration, eds. J. K. Boyce, S. Narain, and E. A. Stanton, 111–126. New York: Anthem Press.Google Scholar
  77. Rayner, G., and T. Lang. 2015. Ecological public health: leaders, movements and ideas to shift the boundaries between the normal and the desirable. In Healthy people, places and planet: Reflections based on Tony McMichael’s four decades of contribution to epidemiological understanding, C. Butler, and J. Dixon, eds. and A. G. Capon, 617–641. Canberra: ANU Press.Google Scholar
  78. Razavi, S. 2009. Engendering the political economy of agrarian change. The Journal of Peasant Studies 36 (1): 197–226.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  79. Rivera-Ferre, M. G. 2012. Framing of agri-food research affects the analysis of food security: The critical role of the social sciences. International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food 19 (2): 162–175.Google Scholar
  80. Roos, N., M. M. Islam, and S. H. Thilsted. 2003. Small indigenous fish species in Bangladesh: Contribution to vitamin A, calcium and iron intakes. The Journal of Nutrition 133 (11): 4021S–4026S.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  81. Rosset, P., and M. E. Martínez-Torres. 2012. Rural social movements and agroecology: Context, theory, and process. Ecology and Society 17 (3): 17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  82. Scrinis, G. 2008. On the ideology of nutritionism. Gastronomica 8 (1): 39–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  83. Sen, A. 1981. Poverty and famines: An essay on entitlement and deprivation. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
  84. Sharif, N. R., and A. A. Dar. 1996. An empirical study of the patterns and sources of technical inefficiency in traditional and HYV rice cultivation in Bangladesh. The Journal of Development Studies 32 (4): 612–629.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  85. Singh, R. B. 2000. Environmental consequences of agricultural development: A case study from the Green Revolution state of Haryana, India. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 82 (1): 97–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  86. Smith, L. C., and L. Haddad. 2015. Reducing child undernutrition: Past drivers and priorities for the post-MDG era. World Development 68: 180–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  87. Taylor, M. 2011. ‘Freedom from poverty is not for free’: Rural development and the microfinance crisis in Andhra Pradesh, India. Journal of Agrarian Change 11 (4): 484–504.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  88. Thilsted, S., and M. Wahab. 2014. Production and conservation of nutrient-rich small fish (SIS) in ponds and wetlands for nutrition security and livelihoods in South Asia. Bayan Lepas: WorldFish.Google Scholar
  89. Thorne-Lyman, A. L., N. Valpiani, K. Sun, R. D. Semba, C. L. Klotz, K. Kraemer, … and M. W. Bloem. 2010. Household dietary diversity and food expenditures are closely linked in rural Bangladesh, increasing the risk of malnutrition due to the financial crisis. The Journal of Nutrition 140 (1): 182S–188S.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  90. Van Schendel, W. 2009. A history of Bangladesh. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  91. Van den Bosch, R. 1978. The pesticide conspiracy. Garden City: NY Doubleday.Google Scholar
  92. Wahlqvist, M. L., and R. L. Specht. 1998. Food variety and biodiversity: Eeconutrition. Asia Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition 7: 314–319.Google Scholar
  93. Wittman, H., and J. Blesh. 2017. Food sovereignty and Fome Zero: Connecting public food procurement programmes to sustainable rural development in Brazil. Journal of Agrarian Change 17 (1): 81–105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  94. Wittman, H., A. A. Desmarais, and N. Wiebe, eds. 2010. The origins and potential of food sovereignty. In Food sovereignty: Reconnecting food, nature and community, 1–14. Halifax: Fernwood.Google Scholar
  95. World Bank. 2007. World development report 2008: Agriculture for development. Washington, DC World Bank.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  96. World Food Programme. 2012a. WFP Bangladesh nutrition strategy 2012–2016. Rome: WFP.Google Scholar
  97. World Food Programme. 2012b. Undernutrition Maps of Bangladesh: Key Findings. Rome: WFP.Google Scholar
  98. WorldFish. 2015. Factsheet: 2015–16. Penang, Malaysia. http://pubs.iclarm.net/resource_centre/2015-16.pdf. Accessed 24 April 2017.
  99. Yin, R. K., ed. 2004. Introduction. In The case study anthology, xi-xx. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
  100. Yunus, M., B. Moingeon, and L. Lehmann-Ortega. 2010. Building social business models: Lessons from the Grameen experience. Long Range Planning 43 (2): 308–325.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media B.V., part of Springer Nature 2017

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of U-Peace, Graduate School of International and Area StudiesHankuk University of Foreign StudiesSeoulRepublic of Korea

Personalised recommendations

Cite article

Buy options