Whom are you feeding, Bangladesh?

As we rode through the streets of Barisol on cycle rickshaws under the star-filled skies, with our luggage and laptop bags in-hand, I couldn’t resist thinking to myself, “I can’t believe I get paid to do this!” The streets of the town were gradually being filled by pedestrians, auto and cycle rickshaws, and cyclists as stores reopened for business after a second day of hartal or a national strike in Bangladesh, provoked by the kidnapping of an opposition party leader. During a hartal, motorized vehicles and stores are warned to not be in operation, which most comply with with the exception of a few daring (or perhaps, desperate) auto rickshaw and bus drivers. The reaction? Typically, the vehicle is lit on fire, and the driver may face public beating by supporters of the party that has called for the strike. This particular hartal coincided with a two week business trip my boss and I had taken with our partners to study various food value chains that thrive in the southern part of the country. The result was the building up of our knowledge that just skimmed the surface of Bangladesh’s food productions systems and markets from producer to end-consumer. The food journey from the field to our tummies is a good one to know, but even better will be figuring out how to help producers, especially among the poor, enhance the quality of production while earning the incomes they rightfully deserve for feeding their nation’s people, and often times, many of us all over the world. Funding for programs with such objectives come from President Obama’s Feed the Future initiative, through which the current administration has pledged $3.5 billion over 3 years to enhance agriculture production and strengthen food production systems in the less developed world with particular emphasis on increasing food security and improving the nutrition status of the world’s poor. The US government particularly emphasizes that to be food secure, not only must food be available in sufficient quantities, but it must also be accessible to all and utilized by all down to the household level. Women included.

 I’ve just completed my fifth week with Development Alternatives, Incorporated (DAI) (though, by the time this post is published, it will be eight weeks), one of the largest USAID contractors. I had contemplated making the transition from NGO to a private development firm for some time now, but the jump was postponed when I realized that it would be through working with an NGO that I would attain the necessary grassroots experience and understanding of poverty at the household level--- through exposures less typical in the private development world and critical, in my opinion, to amass as early on in one’s professional career as possible. They profoundly influence the way one approaches development moving forward, and attaining the experience is less painstaking when one pursues it earlier on with a more open, untainted mind and a greater tolerance for “roughing it” or in other words, being able to live like most of the world’s population for a bit of time. What I’ve sought in my new setting is greater diligence, discipline, and efficiency in developing solutions and approaches to poverty that are more systemic in nature. In very simple, general terms, NGOs often perpetuate change in a deep, yet unfortunately less sustainable manner, for a smaller few, while the latter seeks to effect sustainable change through markets and government for the wider many. I believe in this pursuit deeply and desire to explore whether the solutions here truly do impact larger populations in a more sustainable manner.

One of my first assignments has been to prepare for an anticipated bid for a Feed the Future program in Bangladesh that aims to enhance the efficiency (and quality) of production of a range of food and non-food commodities, while better integrating women and smallholder farmers into the system to help increase their incomes and availability, access, and utilization of food by themselves and their families. Given the competitive nature of the USAID tendering process, until proposals are submitted (once the solicitation is released), this post will be limited to some of the constraints we observed during our field visits, rather than embellishing on the solutions we might propose to address these. Welcome back to the world of government contracting.


As I discussed in my post from a visit two years ago to this former piece of India and then Pakistan, Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated nations in the world with over 164 million people residing in a space the size of Iowa! Forty percent of the population and fifty percent of the female population is undernourished. Forty percent of the population currently lives below the poverty line, and the country has one of the highest rates of child stunting in the world. These figures were viciously affirmed as we made our way back to Gulshan-2, one of Dhaka’s more prestigious neighborhoods, from the docks at the end of a brief, yet intense field visit to the south of the country. Because of the continued hartal, we were required to take a launch that took us across rivers, rather than roads, back to Dhaka. Launches are local cruise liners that provide overnight domestic transport between some of Bangladesh’s major towns/cities along river routes. The ground floor typically has no furnishings, and families traveling on general tickets line up side by side on the wooden floors, rolling out their sheets and blankets to sleep on and make the journey a little more comfortable. Launches can be three to four and sometimes more floors high, and the berths can be found up at the top levels. As I entered mine and scanned the bright blue, dusty tapestries, fringed with red and gold tussles and the cockroaches scramming towards shelter under a small, sheet-stained bed, I realized this was going to be another interesting experience. I was also oh so glad that I had followed by instinct to pack an extra set of sheets! My balcony contained a small sink, and a small door leading to my private, en suite bathroom with hole in the ground toilet and all. At departure and arrival, travelers on balconies on neighboring boats could look on to see others brushing their teeth and carrying on with business as usual under the bright neon green and yellow lights of the other boats. It was like being in a mini apartment complex on water.

The journey from the Dhaka docks to our hotel was an eye-opening one. We each hopped onto our cycle rickshaws (as the hartal was still on), and I was wrought with guilt over the laborious journey that my biker would have to make with a load of myself and the luggage that I can never seem to keep to a minimum. As he grew increasingly drenched in sweat, the beads slid down to the tips of his hair before drizzling onto me. What could I say? I wrapped my dupatta up and around my mouth and nose. I was in a predominantly Muslim country, after all. How odd could I have looked?

 One never sees Dhaka this empty- EVER! It was a luxury to drive through empty roads, but it provided a window into the lives of the invisible, whose livelihoods occur in the wee hours when everyone else is asleep. Men and women of apparent grueling poverty emerged from piles and piles of waste along the roadsides, wearing no masks or gloves, their sandaled feet fully exposed to waste and toxins. A lifetime literally in the gutters spent in dire poverty seemed to have stunted their growth on so many levels, rendering them almost subhuman. I looked on in despair as my insides tightened along with my heart, and I wanted to weep, thinking how can this be? Before I could wallow for too long, I gripped my backpack as I watched in horror the impending collision of an auto rickshaw and an SUV that had dared to venture onto the roads that morning. A loud ‘BANG!’ was followed by the ‘clunk!’ of the rickshaw tipped over onto the road. As we cycled on, I peered back but saw no one emerge from the rickshaw. I prayed that he was alright as well as his rickshaw that was either procured on credit or leased by the day. Who would be held responsible? If the driver was physically harmed, where would the daily income for his family’s sustenance come from until he healed? If the rickshaw was damaged, how would the repair costs be covered? Did the driver, due to ill fate, just land himself in an unexpected lifetime of debt? Three weeks later, I still wonder.

Despite the dark picture I realize I’ve just painted, Bangladesh is a country of great economic potential. In agriculture alone, the country produces such a grand variety of both nutritious foods as well as those whose byproducts are in high demand all over the world. You and I have consumed these products probably without realizing it, such as the jute we find in ropes and cots and the coir (husk fibers) from coconut that are used to make mattresses and floor mats. But, value addition is hardly to be found here. Take vegetables or even flowers, for example, two high potential areas for literal growth here. Both of these are grown in the south west part of the country in large quantities, but smallholder farmers lack the skills and know-how to maximize cropping cycles and the high quality inputs (e.g., seeds, fertilizer) required for quality production of these goods. There are few cooling facilities to be found anywhere in the countryside, and with poor infrastructure and virtually no packing materials, outrageous quantities of waste are seen in these two families of goods. There are no standards for grading and sorting goods before reaching wholesale markets. Farmers are often paid unfair, dismal prices for their produce, bordering exploitation, particularly during the lean seasons for income generation. Most farmers never see the markets because the existing system is embedded with middlemen all along the chain beginning at the farm gates, where most of the goods are collected. The system is rife with chaos and exploitation and perpetuates indebtedness and poverty in a way that we ascertained so unnecessary while studying these systems and chains all the way down to these farmer households.

White buds and marigolds at the Dhaka wholesale flower market (Shahbag Bazaar)

Rickshaw Art

Female wholesaler at Shahbag Bazaar

A woman earns a meager wage for flower petals

Piker or trader selling vegetables at the Dhaka whole horticulture market (Kawran Bazaar)

Guess who's the wholesaler in this picture?

Traders within the wholesale market

Women bear much of the brunt of this system. They contribute immensely to production, and while prohibited to buy, sell, and engage in the marketplace, are given no choice when it comes to executing the back-breaking and labor-intensive aspects of production. Perhaps due to socio-cultural and religious inhibitions, the very women in the field sowing and harvesting are unable to engage in decisions on what inputs to purchase, what to grow, and when to grow it. Even when extension services are available to disseminate these skills and knowledge, in the current system, women cannot engage with these service providers. Women are rarely permitted to engage on the front end of business, but of course, back end work as the invisible laborers is perfectly acceptable. Women are the last to eat in a household and often end up with very little to consume in both quantity and nutritious value. These women literally create the next generation, and the cycle is perpetuated. So, there you have it.

The only instance where women are visible in the vegetable market- selling the collected, unsellable scraps down market

Tea and bread- where is the nutrition??

Collected scraps are made to "look nice" and then sold to a lower marget segment

The unsellable unsellable scraps can go even further down market

Our team studying jute production in Faridpur

Raw jute being transported to a local factory for processing

Unhusked rice

Now, can you guess who the wholesaler is? Clue: stomach size

Piker auctioning tiger shrimp to buyers

Bepari (also trader) at the fish wholesale market in Barisol

It has been one insightful experience, and I must say, an optimistic one. All the issues laid out here have very clear solutions and are rectifiable. This is wonderful news! The challenge is to articulate these solutions and carve out implementable approaches that are going to tackle these obstacles in a deep and sustainable way. My fear? Much of this change is likely unwanted by a few and powerful. Some of the constraints require a deep-rooted change at the socio-cultural level that seeps into the very psyche of a massive population. How we approach our market solutions is the focus of the next couple of months, but the much-needed behavior change will be among the first of the challenges we will face in the field if and when we win this opportunity.