Seasonal Hunger and Public Policies Evidence from Northwest Bangladesh

Agricultural development through crop diversification, irrigation, high yielding crop varieties, and public investments in infrastructure has improved food security and its seasonal dimension worldwide in recent years. Consequently, the severity of seasonal hunger caused by agricultural crop cycles has lessened substantially. Yet in agricultural pockets scattered throughout Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, seasonal hunger persists, especially among the rural poor, owing primarily to idiosyncratic shocks caused by agricultural seasonality. The book provides an exhaustive inquiry of Bangladesh's seasonal hunger with special reference to the northwest region, where it is more pronounced. It also presents an evaluation of several policy interventions launched recently in mitigating seasonality, which provide a test case of what works and what does not in combating seasonal hunger. The major findings of the book are: (a) Policies to improve food security should explicitly take into account the seasonal dimension of food deprivation. (b) Gains from initiatives to combat seasonal hunger should be monitored and consolidated to ensure sustainable impacts, and (c) Policies should also focus on areas that, owing to environmental degradation and climate change, are increasingly vulnerable to seasonal hunger and food insecurity in general.