Food crop production, nutrient availability, and
nutrient intakes in Bangladesh: Exploring the
agriculture–nutrition nexus with the 2010
Household Income and Expenditure Survey
John L. Fiedler
Abstract
Background. Systematic collection of national agricul-
tural data has been neglected in many low- and middle-
income countries for the past 20 years. Commonly
conducted nationally representative household surveys
collect substantial quantities of highly underutilized food
crop production data.
Objective. To demonstrate the potential usefulness
of commonly available household survey databases for
analyzing the agriculture–nutrition nexus.
Methods. Using household data from the 2010 Bang-
ladesh Household Income and Expenditure Survey, the
role and significance of crop selection, area planted, yield,
nutrient production, and the disposition of 34 food crops
in affecting the adequacy of farming households’ nutrient
availability and nutrient intake status are explored. The
adequacy of each farming household’s available energy,
vitamin A, calcium, iron, and zinc and households’
apparent intakes and intake adequacies are estimated.
Each household’s total apparent nutrient intake adequa-
cies are estimated, taking into account the amount of
each crop that households consume from their own
production, together with food purchased or obtained
from other sources.
Results. Even though rice contains relatively small
amounts of micronutrients, has relatively low nutrient
density, and is a relatively poor source of nutrients com-
pared with what other crops can produce on a given tract
of land, because so much rice is produced in Bangladesh,
it is the source of 90% of the total available energy, 85%
The author is affiliated with Poverty, Health and Nutri-
tion Division, International Food Policy Research Institute,
Washington, DC, and, at the time of writing this article, with
the United States Agency for International Development’s
Strengthening Partnerships, Results and Innovations in
Nutrition Globally (SPRING).
Please direct queries to the author: John L. Fiedler,
HarvestPlus, International Food Policy Research Institute
(IFPRI), 2033 K Street NW, Washington, DC 20006, USA;
e-mail: J.fiedler@cgiar.org.
Food and Nutrition Bulletin, vol. 35, no. 4 © 2014, The Nevin Scrimshaw International Nutrition Foundation.
of the zinc, 67% of the calcium, and 55% of the iron
produced by the agricultural sector. The domination
of agriculture and diet by rice is a major constraint to
improving nutrition in Bangladesh. Simple examples of
how minor changes in the five most common cropping
patterns could improve farming households’ nutritional
status are provided.
Conclusions. Household surveys’ agricultural mod-
ules can provide a useful tool for better understanding
national nutrient production realities and possibilities.
Key words: Dietary assessment, food policy, House-
hold Consumption and Expenditure Survey (HCES),
micronutrients, nutrient availability, nutrient intake,
nutrient intake adequacy, nutrition policy
Introduction
The ascendancy of interest in the agriculture–nutrition
nexus and the long-term deterioration of agricultural
statistics could not have been more ill-timed. Just as
the international nutrition community was coming
to a consensus about the fundamental importance
of agriculture in nutrition, and began positioning
agriculture at center stage in the analysis of the causes
and the search for solutions to malnutrition, the
United Nations, the Food and Agriculture Organiza-
tion (FAO), the World Bank, the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation, and others began calling for action to
reverse the long-term neglect of systematic collection
of national agricultural data in many low- and middle-
income countries. Lamenting that “Over the last
two decades, the quantity and quality of agricultural
statistics have undergone a serious decline,” in 2010
the United Nations and FAO began a global initiative,
“Improving Statistics for Food Security, Sustainable
Agriculture and Rural Development” [1]. Shortly there-
after, the World Bank joined the efforts, acknowledg-
ing that “Many countries, especially in the developing
487
488
TABLE 1. Prevalence (%) of nutritional deficiencies in Bangladesh, 2011/12
Preschool-age
Nutritional deficiency children All: (6–14 yr)
Vitamin A 76.9 74.5
Anemia 33.1
Iron 10.7
Iron-deficiency anemia 7.2
Zinc 44.6
Iodine 40.0
Vitamin B12
Folate
Source: Icddr,B, UNICEF/Bangladesh, GAIN, Institute of Public Health and Nutrition, 2013 [11].
world, lack the capacity to produce and report even the
minimum set of agricultural data.” Later that year, the
two agencies unveiled their “Global Strategy to Improve
Agricultural and Rural Statistics” [2]. This initiative is
sorely needed and past due. The nature of the factors
that have contributed to this neglect and the longstand-
ing nature of neglect both suggest that remedying the
situation will be a long process and one that will likely
proceed unevenly and with varying degrees of success
across countries.
Another trend that is observable over the past two
decades has been the slow but steady growth in the
use of Household Consumption and Expenditure Sur-
veys (HCES) to analyze nutrition issues [3, 4]. Most
of the analyses of these surveys to date have focused
on the food consumption and expenditure data that
are routinely collected in the consumption modules
of these surveys. Roughly three-quarters of HCES
contain another potentially highly useful component
for analyzing complementary aspects of nutrition
issues, viz., an agricultural module. For many low- and
middle-income countries where agricultural statistics
have been neglected, these surveys provide a potentially
useful source of routinely collected national agricul-
tural data with which to analyze the agriculture–nutri-
tion nexus. The objective of this paper is to provide a
case study of Bangladesh to demonstrate this potential.
Analyzing data from the 2010 Bangladesh Household
Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES), the paper
explores the nutrient availability of foods produced in
Bangladesh and the relationship of nutrient availability
and apparent inadequate nutrient intake [5].
The context
Bangladesh has made enormous strides in reducing
population growth, mortality, and morbidity over the
past three decades. It is one of the few countries that
will achieve the Millennium Development Goal of
reducing mortality among children under 5 years of
age by two-thirds by 2015. Much of the progress has
J. L. Fiedler
School-age children Nonpregnant,
nonlactating
6–11 yr 12–14 yr women 15–49 yr
39.7
19.1 17.1 26.0
3.9 9.5 7.1
1.3 1.8 4.8
57.3
42.1
6.1
9.1
been attributable to poverty reduction* and advances
in education and health programs. The most significant
progress in health has been the steady, two-decade-long
growth in coverage rates of immunization, oral rehy-
dration salts (ORS), and vitamin A supplementation, all
of which attained rates in excess of 80% by 2006 [7–9].
In contrast to the advances in health, nutritional
deficiencies have proven more intractable. Anthropo-
metric measures only began to improve in the mid-
1990s, and both macro- and micronutrient deficiencies
remain high (table 1)—higher than would be predicted
by the country’s income level alone [7]. Factors that
have been cited as to why Bangladesh’s rates of mal-
nutrition have been so high include the gap in the
distribution of foods between households and between
members within households (due largely to discrimi-
nation against girls), gastrointestinal malabsorption,
morbidity, and ignorance about the importance of and
the unavailability of protein and micronutrients in the
diet [10].
The nutrition gains—in reducing stunting (begin-
ning in the mid-1990s) and in increasing per capita
caloric availability—that have been achieved have been
due to increased rice production. Starting with the
advent of the Green Revolution in the 1970s, Bang-
ladesh has increased rice production by 98%.** The
average number of calories available per person per day
grew from an annual average of 2,059 in 1993–95 to
2,438 in 2007–09, an increase of 18% [12]. As a result,
the average real price of rice fell by 15% from the early
1990s through 2004 and average income grew [13].
Although there has been some increase in the amount
of land planted, most of the increase in production
has been due to increases in productivity, the use of
* Between 1980 and 2009, per capita gross national income
increased more than fivefold (measured in international dol-
lars, i.e., purchasing power parity [6]).
** Tiongco M, Hossain M. 2013. Determinants of adoption
of modern varieties and rice varietal diversity on household
farms in Bangladesh. Unpublished paper prepared for Har-
vestPlus. Washington DC: International Food Policy Research
Institute.
Agriculture–nutrition nexus in Bangladesh
high-yielding modern varieties, and irrigation [14, 15].
These long-term trends, however, appear to be playing
out. With irrigation now reaching 70% of the country
and the nearly complete adoption of modern varieties
on irrigated lands, these factors are approaching their
ceiling levels, slowing the growth in rice output levels
and with it, threatening the rate of progress that has
been made in improving nutritional status. Progress
in reducing stunting has stalled. At the same time,
the two-decade-long trend of growing coverage of the
vitamin A supplementation and ORS programs has
been reversed [8, 9, 16],* revealing the vulnerability
of the advances made by these programs to date, while
rekindling interest in food-based interventions, both to
shore up the gains made to date and as a mechanism for
accelerating improvements in micronutrient intakes.
On average, Bangladeshis eat 453 g of rice per day
and obtain 70% of their total daily caloric intake from
rice. Although increasing rice production, availability,
and consumption has helped to reduce energy malnu-
trition in Bangladesh, it alone cannot address all of the
country’s nutrition problems. Despite the tremendous
advances in rice production, the diet of many Bang-
ladeshis remains inadequate in both quantitative and
qualitative terms [17].
The objective of this paper is to analyze the agri-
cultural module of the 2010 Bangladesh Household
Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) to estimate
the nutrient availability of food crops produced in
Bangladesh [18]. This is an exploratory study to better
understand the quality of the Bangladeshi diet and to
investigate food-based strategies for improving it and
the micronutrient status of Bangladeshis.
The organization of the paper is as follows: first,
the supply of food is analyzed using the agriculture
module of the 2010 Bangladesh HIES and discussing
the production of food crops in Bangladesh. Then the
paper considers the nutritional characteristics of the
food produced relative to the nutritional requirements
and nutritional status of the Bangladesh population,
focusing in particular on farming households. Finally,
the paper considers some potential changes that might
be made in the farming behaviors—cropping, crop
disposition, and food crop consumption patterns—of
Bangladeshi farmers to improve their nutritional status.
Methods
The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics of the Ministry
of Planning has conducted the HIES since 1973. The
15th round of the survey was conducted between
* Coverage of the vitamin A supplementation program
grew steadily from 1996 to 2007, when it peaked at 88%,
before slipping to 60% in 2011. ORS usage rates have followed
a parallel trend, falling from 81% to 60% [8, 9].
489
February 2010 and January 2011 and interviewed
12,240 households. It was a two-stage stratified sample
with probability proportional to size, and the sampling
frame was based on the 2001 population census [5, 19].
The sample provides estimates that are representative
at the national level and for each of Bangladesh’s six
divisions. Demographic information was collected
on each household member. The total number of
individuals in the sample was 55,580. Sample weights,
adjusted for nonresponse, are included in the database
and are used to determine total population estimates
of households and persons. The interviewing was done
between 1 February 2010 and 31 January 2011. The
year was divided into 18 terms. Data were collected
in 34 primary sampling units during each term in
an effort to minimize distortions that may have been
caused by seasonality.
Estimating nutrient intakes with the consumption
module
The consumption module of the survey included 132
food items. Information on household food acquisition
and consumption was collected in seven visits to each
home. During each visit, a 2-day recall was conducted,
and information on the quantity, value, and source of
each food item consumed (purchases, in-kind wage,
own production, and gifted food) was collected for the
entire household.
To estimate the apparent nutrient intake of Bangla-
deshi households, we identified the specific types and
quantities of each of the 132 foods in the HIES food list
that the household reported it purchased, consumed
from its own production, received as payment in kind,
or received without payment (e.g., from friends, rela-
tives, or a safety net program) during the previous 14
days. We assumed that all of the food that was acquired
during the 14-day reference period was consumed
during that period, and we used it as a proxy for the
household’s “usual intake.” Adjustments were made
for the edible portion of foods, but no adjustments
were made for waste or loss or for food given away or
used for other than human consumption. To remind
the reader of these important assumptions, we refer to
our estimate of the quantity of food eaten during the
14-day recall period as the quantity of food that was
“apparently consumed.”
The nutrient content of each food item was esti-
mated by matching it to a food composition table.
Following the work of Bermudez and colleagues [20],
we used a combination of a Bangladesh-specific food
composition table that was developed by HarvestPlus,
complemented where necessary with food composition
tables of the National Institute of Nutrition of India and
the US Department of Agriculture [21], and updated
these estimates with the recently released University of
Dhaka food composition table [22]. We estimated each
490 J. L. Fiedler

TABLE 2. Farm size distributiona

household’s total caloric intake and its total nutrient
intakes of calcium, vitamin A, iron, and zinc and cal- Quintile Size (decimals)
culated each household’s Estimated Average Require- Q1: Small < 33
ment (EAR) based on the household’s composition, Q2 33 to < 120
i.e., the number, age, and sex of its members, using the Q3 120 to < 231
FAO’s adult consumption equivalent [23]. Not having Q4 231 to < 429
any information on individuals’ physical activity level Q5: Large ≥ 429
or their anthropometrics, we assumed that all persons
had a moderate physical activity level and we did not Mean 288.0
make adjustments for body size. Given the longstand- Median 168.0
ing, persistently high prevalence rate of stunting in Total area 4,367,505,236
Bangladesh, it is likely that our not adjusting for body No. of farms 15,165,840
size results in overestimation of nutrient intake require- a. 1 decimal = .01 acre.
ments and of nutrient intake inadequacies. We used
the US Institute of Medicine EARs [24], to estimate TABLE 3. Number of crops grown by Bangladeshi farmers
the prevalence of inadequate nutrient intake as the
No. of crops No. of Percent of Cumulative
percentage of individuals with intakes below the EAR, grown households households percent
using the cut-point method for vitamin A, calcium, and
zinc and the probability method for iron.* 1 2,798,884 18.46 18.46
2 3,926,676 25.89 44.35
3 2,680,343 17.67 62.02
Estimating nutrient production and nutrient
4 1,732,217 11.42 73.44
availability with the agricultural module
5 1,257,848 8.29 81.74
Interviewees were asked if anyone in the household 6 816,314 5.38 87.12
had been engaged in the agricultural sector in the pre- 7 590,160 3.89 91.01
vious 12 months. The 5,640 interviewed households 8 450,035 2.97 93.98
that answered affirmatively (46%) were then admin- 9+ 913,363 6.02 100.00
istered the agricultural module. Respondents were Total 15,165,840 100.00
asked if anyone in the household had planted any of
34 precoded food crops (including fruit trees) in the
previous 12 months. For each crop that was planted, nutrients in the food consumed by Bangladeshis should
the household was asked how much land they had cul- include considerations of how the food is usually stored
tivated under the crop, how much of the crop they had and prepared. We therefore adopted the food-list-based
produced, and the disposition of the output (household estimates of nutrient contents as the estimates for the
consumption, sold, stored, and other). We used these food crops, as well.
data, in combination with information from the food
composition tables [20–22], to estimate the availabil-
ity of energy, calcium, iron, vitamin A, and zinc, and Results
then analyzed the risk of deficiency or adequate intake
using the cut-point method for calcium, vitamin A, Food crop production and total nutrient availability
and iron and the probability method for iron [24, 25]. in Bangladesh
The agricultural module’s food crop list is much more
“commodity-like” than the consumption module’s The vast majority of the 15.2 million Bangladeshi
food item list. As such, the food crop list introduces households that engage in agriculture have small
substantially more uncertainty about how best to match farms (table 2): 56% cultivate less than 1 acre of land.
food crops to the food composition table, because the On average, farmers planted a mean of 2.9 acres and
food composition table has more detailed entries that a median of 1.7 acres. The typical farming household
capture differences in a food’s nutrient content owing plants three or four crops annually as shown in table 3.
to differences in how the food is stored and prepared. The most commonly grown crop is Boro rice (64%),
Whereas the food list matchings reflect these addi- followed by Aman rice (52%). The next most common
tional nutrient-content-affecting considerations, the crops are mango (30%), jack fruit (21%), and beans
more general, commodity-like food crops list does not. (14%).**
We assumed that the most accurate estimates of the
** Bangladesh has three overlapping rice-growing seasons:
two dry seasons (Aus and Boro) and a wet season (Aman).
* See pages 55–60 of the US Institute of Medicine [25] for As measured by the amount of land planted, Aman is the
the probability method and pages 60–62 for the cut-point most important of the three, accounting for about half of
method. all land annually cultivated in rice and 35% to 40% of total
Agriculture–nutrition nexus in Bangladesh 491

TABLE 4. Bangladesh food crop production and availability, 2010

HHs planting crop Total area planted Production Refuse Availability
(g/HH/
Food crop No. % Acres % MTs % day)a %
1 Rice–boro 9,645,394 63.6 9,197,162 37.36 18,118,931 0.000 1,503 47.94
2 Rice–aman 7,917,324 52.2 8,104,279 32.92 9,332,285 0.000 774 24.69
3 Rice–aus 2,134,820 14.1 2,012,306 8.17 1,788,901 0.000 148 4.73
Rice–all 11,981,055 79.0 19,313,747 78.45 29,252,571 0.000 2,427 77.41
4 Wheat 1,387,913 9.2 559,295 2.27 537,942 0.000 45 1.42
5 Maize 402,188 2.7 163,486 0.66 391,050 0.370 20 0.65
6 Sugar 228,060 1.5 161,868 0.66 2,411,639 0.900 20 0.64
7 Pulses 1,571,917 10.4 850,515 3.45 309,529 0.000 26 0.82
8 Oil seeds 1,282,479 8.5 690,434 2.80 298,195 0.000 25 0.79
9 Potato 1,641,022 10.8 379,067 1.54 2,219,465 0.250 138 4.40
10 Onion 951,584 6.3 218,791 0.89 834,972 0.100 62 1.99
11 Garlic 688,067 4.5 44,230 0.18 72,457 0.130 5 0.17
12 Ginger 170,476 1.1 29,794 0.12 50,957 0.070 4 0.13
13 Turmeric 751,980 5.0 122,102 0.50 219,377 0.000 18 0.58
14 Tomato 630,597 4.2 62,364 0.25 229,523 0.090 17 0.55
15 Brinjal 1,206,120 8.0 125,829 0.51 522,343 0.190 35 1.12
16 Green banana & 1,085,280 7.2 60,544 0.25 254,986 0.360 14 0.43
papaya
17 Cauliflower & 247,258 1.6 45,752 0.19 368,026 0.405 18 0.58
cabbage
18 Pumpkin 1,276,388 8.4 81,500 0.33 198,168 0.300 12 0.37
19 Radish 375,456 2.5 27,690 0.11 112,667 0.100 8 0.27
20 Green chili 1,568,147 10.3 187,148 0.76 381,798 0.270 23 0.74
21 Bean 2,052,059 13.5 64,777 0.26 164,917 0.000 14 0.44
22 Perbol/carrot 236,587 1.6 31,515 0.13 144,682 0.110 11 0.34
23 Okra 474,955 3.1 29,776 0.12 134,483 0.140 10 0.31
24 Puisak/spinach 1,267,574 8.4 31,780 0.13 106,532 0.113 8 0. 25
25 Other vegetables 1,409,203 9.3 35,331 0.14 553,926 0.165 38 1.22
26 Mango 4,493,258 29.6 623,881 2.53 624,808 0.310 36 1.14
27 Jack fruit 3,244,666 21.4 181,735 0.74 759,651 0.720 18 0.56
28 Ripe banana 1,075,977 7.1 46,417 0.19 762,880 0.360 41 1.29
29 Ripe papaya 820,035 5.4 103,723 0.42 109,482 0.330 6 0.19
30 Pineapple 105,682 0.7 2,933 0.01 25,035 0.490 1 0.03
31 Lychee 141,823 0.9 17,572 0.07 32,546 0.400 2 0.05
32 Melon 300,142 2.0 40,494 0.16 101,942 0.477 4 0.14
33 Guava 1,838,228 12.1 230,625 0.94 145,566 0.220 9 0.30
34 Other fruit 1,945,704 12.8 54,894 0.22 362,399 0.294 21 0.68
Totals 15,165,840 100.0 24,619,610 100 42,694,514 3,135 100
HH, household; MT, metric ton
a. Grams per household per day, adjusted for refuse. Includes all Bangladesh households.

Table 4 shows the number of households planting
the crop, the total area planted, total production, and
grams of the crop available per household per day for
each of the 34 food crops. Bangladesh’s rice monocul-
ture is readily evident: in 2010, 79% of farming house-
holds (36% of all Bangladeshi households) planted rice,
production. Measured by output, Boro is the most important
season, accounting for about 55% of total annual production
and about 40% of the rice-cultivated land [26, 27].
78% of the land cultivated in food crops was planted
in rice, and rice constituted 69% of total food crop
production in metric tons.
Nutrient density of food crops: An indicator of the quality
of nutrient availability
Table 5 shows the nutrient contents of each of the 34
food crops. Section A of the table shows the nutri-
ent content per 100 g of edible portion of each crop.
These are the food composition table entries that were
492 J. L. Fiedler

TABLE 5. Nutrient content and nutrient density per decimal of food crops produced in Bangladesh, 2010
A. Nutrients per 100 g of edible portion B. Nutrients per day per decimala
Vita- Vita-
Energy Calcium min A Iron Zinc Energy Calcium min A Iron Zinc
Food crop kcal mg µg RAE mg mg kcal mg µg RAE mg mg
1 Rice–aus 364 22 0 0.78 1.1 89 5 0 0.2 0.3
2 Rice–aman 364 22 0 0.78 1.1 115 7 0 0.2 0.3
3 Rice–boro 364 22 0 0.78 1.1 196 12 0 0.4 0.6
4 Wheat, atta 339 34 0 3.88 2.93 89 9 0 1.0 0.8
5 Maize 86 2 9 0.52 0.46 36 1 4 0.2 0.2
6 Sugar/misri 387 1 0 0.05 0.01 158 0 0 0.0 0.0
7 Pulses 353 101 2.5 5.61 2.79 35 10 0 0.6 0.3
8 Oil seed 884 0 0 0 0 105 0 0 0.0 0.0
9 Potato 77 12 0 0.78 0.29 93 14 0 0.9 0.3
10 Onion 40 23 0 0.21 0.17 38 22 0 0.2 0.2
11 Garlic 149 181 0 1.70 1.16 58 71 0 0.7 0.5
12 Ginger 80 16 0 0.60 0.34 35 7 0 0.3 0.1
13 Turmeric 354 183 0 41.42 4.35 174 90 0 20.4 2.1
14 Tomato 18 10 42 0.27 0.17 17 9 39 0.2 0.2
15 Brinjal (eggplant) 24 9 1 0.24 0.16 22 8 1 0.2 0.1
16 Green banana/ 89 5 3 0.26 0.15 66 4 2 0.2 0.1
green papaya
17 Cauliflower/ 25 31 2.5 0.45 0.23 33 41 3 0.6 0.3
cabbage
18 White gourd/ 26 21 369 0.80 0.32 12 10 172 0.4 0.1
pumpkin
19 Radish 16 25 0 0.34 0.28 16 25 0 0.3 0.3
20 Green chili 40 14 48 1.03 0.26 16 6 20 0.4 0.1
21 Bean/lobey 62 43 0 1.97 0.5 43 30 0 1.4 0.3
22 Patal/perbol 41 33 835 0.30 0.24 46 37 935 0.3 0.3
(carrot)
23 Ladies’ finger 31 81 19 0.80 0.6 33 86 20 0.9 0.6
(okra)
24 Puisak/spinach 99 809 361 15.68 2.42 81 659 294 12.8 2.0
25 Other vegetables 45 78 112 1.57 0.47 161 280 402 5.6 1.7
26 Mango 65 10 38 0.13 0.04 12 2 7 0.0 0.0
27 Jack fruit 94 34 15 0.60 0.42 30 11 5 0.2 0.1
28 Ripe banana 89 5 3 0.26 0.15 256 14 9 0.7 0.4
29 Ripe papaya 39 24 55 0.10 0.07 8 5 11 0.0 0.0
30 Pineapple 50 13 3 0.29 0.12 60 16 4 0.3 0.1
31 Lychee 66 5 0 0.31 0.07 20 2 0 0.1 0.0
32 Melon/bangi 33 9 57 0.24 0.11 12 3 21 0.1 0.0
33 Guava 68 18 31 0.26 0.23 9 2 4 0.0 0.0
34 Other fruits 67 18 16 0.40 0.38 86 23 21 0.5 0.5
The unconditional mean is averaged over all foods, including those not containing any of the nutrient. The conditional mean includes only
those foods for which there is some non-zero quantity of the nutrient.
RAE, retinal activity equivalent
a. Based on average yield calculated from HIES data.

matched to the HIES food list, item-by-item. Nutrient
density is the ratio of nutrient content to total energy
content. It is a commonly used metric for comparing
the relative contribution of a particular food with the
body’s nutrient requirements. When it is calculated on
the basis of all foods consumed by an individual, it is
an indicator of the quality of the diet.
A comparison of the densities across micronutrients
and food types in table 5 reveals several distinguishing
characteristics. First, there is one crop, oilseeds, that
contains no calcium, vitamin A, iron, or zinc but has
the highest energy content of all 34 of the identified
food crops. Its four micronutrient density measures
are, therefore, all equal to zero. Second, 14 food items
Agriculture–nutrition nexus in Bangladesh
(41% of the 34) contain no vitamin A. This contrasts
sharply with the other three micronutrients—all of
which have only one food crop that contains none of
the micronutrient in question. Clearly, relative to cal-
cium, iron, and zinc, vitamin A occurs less commonly
in the foods identified in the list and is, in general,
more concentrated in those foods in which it is found.
Although increasing the consumption of any of the 34
specified foods—with the exception of vegetable oil—
will increase calcium, iron, and zinc intakes, improving
the intake of vitamin A entails a more selective and
deliberate effort. Other things being equal, attempts to
improve vitamin A nutriture would do well to focus on
white gourd/pumpkin, patal/perbol (carrot), puisak/
spinach, and “other vegetables,” which have especially
high densities of vitamin A.
Nutrient density of the food produced on a given unit of land
Although it is important to understand the differences
in the nutrient densities of foods per se, for the pur-
pose of assessing how to directly harness agriculture
to improve nutrition—and especially the nutrition of
farmers who produce large proportions of the foods
they consume—it is especially important to take into
account the amount of food that can be produced on
a given amount of land (for example, an acre). Section
B in table 5 presents such an indicator: the amount of
each of the four micronutrients that can be produced,
on average, in Bangladesh by cultivating each of the 34
food crops on a decimal of land (1% of an acre). These
estimations are based on the national average yield
per decimal for each food, as estimated from the HIES
agriculture module.*
The foods that have the highest vitamin A densi-
ties—white gourd/pumpkin, patal/perbol (carrot),
puisak/spinach, and “other vegetables”—are also the
foods that produce the highest quantities of vitamin A
per decimal. For calcium, only two of the top four food
crops have both the highest densities per 1,000 kcal
and the highest concentrations per decimal. The two
* To provide a simple assessment of the extent to which
differences in agroecological zones might constitute a con-
straint on farmers’ selection of food crops to cultivate, we
investigated whether each of the 34 food crops was planted
in different regions of the country. We found that of the 238
potential combinations of food crop and region (34 crops
× 7 regions) there were no households planting some of
the crop in question for only 10 combinations (4%). Five of
these 10 combinations were accounted for by pineapple and
Lychee. The only combination of crop and region that was
a top source of any of the micronutrients was perbol/carrot
in Barisal. While recognizing that this is a crude measure
and that there are important, systematic variations in yields
nationwide that influence farmers’ choice of food crops, we
concluded that the differences that exist are not major con-
straints to producing alternative food crop mixes. For the 17
crops that include the sources of all four micronutrients, the
ratio of the maximum and minimum regional average yields
is 4.1 (3.1 without the outlier, turmeric).
493
calcium measures have puisak/spinach and turmeric in
common. The other two foods with the highest calcium
densities per 1,000 kcal are garlic and pulses. Those
with the highest yield-based calculation are “other
vegetables” and ladies’ finger/okra.
In the case of iron, too, only two of the top four food
crops have both the highest densities per 1,000 kcal
and the highest densities per decimal. Again, those
two crops are turmeric and puisak/spinach. The other
two with the highest iron densities per 1,000 kcal are
pulses and wheat. “Other vegetables” and bean/lobey
are among the four crops that can add the greatest
amount of iron to the food supply per decimal. Tur-
meric, wheat, pulses, and ladies’ finger/okra have the
highest densities of zinc per 1,000 kcal, and turmeric,
puisak/spinach, “other vegetables,” and wheat have the
highest densities of zinc per decimal. Clearly, puisak/
spinach is a very important potential source of all four
micronutrients in the food crops produced in Bangla-
desh, and turmeric is for three of the four micronutri-
ents (not vitamin A).
How important are these two crops in the micro-
nutrient intake of Bangladeshi farmers? Despite the
facts that puisak/spinach and turmeric have among
the highest nutrient densities of the foods produced by
Bangladeshi farmers and that they provide the highest
average nutrient concentrations per decimal in the
country, neither crop is all that important a source of
available calcium, vitamin A, iron, or zinc. Puisak/spin-
ach provides 7.9%, 11.0%, 3.6%, and 0.6%, respectively,
of the total available calcium, vitamin A, iron, and zinc
produced by the agricultural sector (i.e., in these 34
crops), while turmeric provides 4.1%, 0.0%, 22.0%, and
2.5%, respectively. The relatively limited contribution
of both of these crops to the nutrient intakes of Bangla-
deshis is because few farmers choose to plant them, and
those who do, plant relatively small areas with them.
Returning to table 1, it can be seen that puisak/spinach
and turmeric are not crops that are commonly both
planted and consumed by Bangladeshi farmers. Puisak/
spinach is planted by only 8.4% of farming households
and turmeric by even fewer, 5.0% (1,267,574 and
751,980 households, respectively). How much of what
is produced by farmers is sold? The total area planted
in puisak/spinach is 31,780 acres, a mere 0.13% of the
total area planted in food crops. The respective quanti-
ties of turmeric are 122,102 acres and 0.50%.
The average Bangladeshi farming household plants
a mean of 16 and a median of 5 decimals of turmeric,
and the respective averages of puisak/spinach are 2.5
and 1 decimals. Although about 70% more households
plant puisak/spinach than plant turmeric, the area
planted in turmeric per farm on average is five times
greater, reflecting the fact that turmeric is a much more
commercialized product. Only 13% of the turmeric
produced is consumed by its producers, compared
with 37% of puisak/spinach. Among all Bangladeshi
TABLE 6. Nutrient availability provided by food crop production in Bangladesh, 2010 494
A. Total availability per HH per day B. Total availability per farming HH per day
Vitamin Vitamin C. Percentage of total micronutrient availability
Energy Calcium A Iron Zinc Energy Calcium A Iron Zinc accounted for by each food
Vitamin
Food crop kcal mg µg RAE mg mg kcal mg µg RAE mg mg Energy Calcium A Iron Zinc
1 Rice–aus 540.1 33.1 — 1.2 1.6 1,176.3 72.2 — 2.5 3.6 5.5 4.1 0.0 3.4 5.2
2 Rice–aman 2,817.8 172.9 — 6.0 8.5 6,136.6 376.5 — 13.1 18.5 28.8 21.4 0.0 17.6 27.3
3 Rice–boro 5,470.9 335.7 — 11.7 16.5 11,914.5 731.0 — 25.5 36.0 56.0 41.6 0.0 34.2 52.9
Rice–all 8,828.9 541.7 — 18.9 26.7 19,227.4 1,179.7 — 41.2 58.1 90.3 67.2 0.0 55.2 85.4
4 Wheat, atta 151.3 15.2 — 1.7 1.3 329.4 33.0 — 3.8 2.8 1.5 1.9 0.0 5.1 4.2
5 Maize 17.6 0.4 1.8 0.1 0.1 38.3 0.9 4.0 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.1 0.7 0.3 0.3
6 Sugar/misri 77.4 0.2 — 0.0 0.0 168.6 0.4 — 0.0 0.0 0.8 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
7 Pulses 90.6 25.9 0.6 1.4 0.7 197.4 56.4 1.4 3.1 1.6 0.9 3.2 0.2 4.2 2.3
8 Oil seed 218.7 — — — — 476.2 — — — — 2.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
9 Potato 106.3 16.6 — 1.1 0.4 231.5 36.1 — 2.3 0.9 1.1 2.1 0.0 3.1 1.3
10 Onion 24.9 14.3 — 0.1 0.1 54.3 31.2 — 0.3 0.2 0.3 1.8 0.0 0.4 0.3
11 Garlic 7.8 9.5 — 0.1 0.1 17.0 20.6 — 0.2 0.1 0.1 1.2 0.0 0.3 0.2
12 Ginger 3.1 0.6 — 0.0 0.0 6.8 1.4 — 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.1 0.0 0.1 0.0
13 Turmeric 64.4 33.3 — 7.5 0.8 140.3 72.5 — 16.4 1.7 0.7 4.1 0.0 22.0 2.5
14 Tomato 3.1 1.7 7.3 0.0 0.0 6.8 3.8 15.8 0.1 0.1 0.0 0.2 2.8 0.1 0.1
15 Brinjal 8.4 3.2 0.4 0.1 0.1 18.3 6.9 0.8 0.2 0.1 0.1 0.4 0.1 0.2 0.2
(eggplant)
16 Green banana/ 12.0 0.7 0.4 0.0 0.0 26.2 1.5 0.9 0.1 0.0 0.1 0.1 0.2 0.1 0.1
papaya
17 Cauliflower/ 4.5 5.6 0.5 0.1 0.0 9.9 12.3 1.0 0.2 0.1 0.0 0.7 0.2 0.2 0.1
Cabbage
18 White gourd/ 3.0 2.4 42.5 0.1 0.0 6.5 5.3 92.5 0.2 0.1 0.0 0.3 16.5 0.3 0.1
Pumpkin
19 Radish 1.3 2.1 — 0.0 0.0 2.9 4.6 — 0.1 0.1 0.0 0.3 0.0 0.1 0.1
20 Green chili 9.2 3.2 11.1 0.2 0.1 20.1 7.0 24.2 0.5 0.1 0.1 0.4 4.3 0.7 0.2
21 Bean/lobey 8.5 5.9 — 0.3 0.1 18.5 12.8 — 0.6 0.1 0.1 0.7 0.0 0.8 0.2
22 Patal/perbol 4.4 3.5 89.2 0.0 0.0 9.5 7.7 194.2 0.1 0.1 0.0 0.4 34.8 0.1 0.1
(carrot)
23 Ladies’ finger 3.0 7.8 1.8 0.1 0.1 6.5 16.9 4.0 0.2 0.1 0.0 1.0 0.7 0.2 0.2
(okra)
24 Puisak/spinach 7.8 63.4 28.3 1.2 0.2 16.9 138.1 61.7 2.7 0.4 0.1 7.9 11.0 3.6 0.6
J. L. Fiedler

25 Other 17.3 29.9 43.0 0.6 0.2 37.6 65.2 93.7 1.3 0.4 0.2 3.7 16.8 1.8 0.6
vegetables
26 Mango 23.2 3.6 13.6 0.0 0.0 50.6 7.8 29.6 0.1 0.0 0.2 0.4 5.3 0.1 0.0
27 Jack fruit 16.6 6.0 2.6 0.1 0.1 36.1 13.1 5.8 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.7 1.0 0.3 0.2
28 Ripe banana 36.0 2.0 1.2 0.1 0.1 78.5 4.4 2.6 0.2 0.1 0.4 0.3 0.5 0.3 0.2
29 Ripe papaya 2.4 1.5 3.3 0.0 0.0 5.2 3.2 7.3 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.2 1.3 0.0 0.0
30 Pineapple 0.5 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.2 0.3 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
31 Lychee 1.1 0.1 — 0.0 0.0 2.3 0.2 — 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
32 Melon/bangi 1.5 0.4 2.5 0.0 0.0 3.2 0.9 5.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.0 0.0 0.0
33 Guava 6.4 1.7 2.9 0.0 0.0 13.9 3.7 6.4 0.1 0.0 0.1 0.2 1.1 0.1 0.1
34 Other fruits 14.2 3.8 3.4 0.1 0.1 31.0 8.3 7.4 0.2 0.2 0.1 0.5 1.3 0.2 0.3
Totals: 9,776 806 257 34 31 21,289 1,756 559 75 68 100 100 100 100 100
Agriculture–nutrition nexus in Bangladesh

Average HH EAR
of:
A. All HHs’ EAR 10,239 3,494 1,616 90 38
(n=33,028,014):
Percent of all 95 23 16 38 82
households’ EAR
available:
B. Farming 11,301 4,007 1,855 103 43
HHs’ EAR
(n=15,165,840):
Percent of farming 188 44 30 72 158
households’ EAR
available:
EARs are HIES-based calculations of age- and gender-weighted household averages. EAR, Estimated Average Requirement; HH, household.
*Net of refuse
495
496
households (i.e., not only those engaged in farming),
98% reported purchasing turmeric in the 14 days
prior to being interviewed, compared with 21% of all
households that reported purchasing puisak/spinach.
It appears that there is considerable upside for Bang-
ladeshi households to increase their production and
consumption of these two nutrient-dense crops.*
Conspicuously lacking in this discussion of the food
crops with the highest micronutrient densities and the
highest concentrations of micronutrients per decimal is
any mention of rice. Rice is far behind these foods as a
provider of these four micronutrients, but in the provi-
sion of kilocalories per decimal it is a top performer.
Averaged over all three seasons, it provides 189 kcal
per decimal, second only to ripe banana (section C
of table 6). For households in which ensuring caloric
intake is the primary concern, therefore, choosing to
plant rice may very well be a rational decision. But what
about the growing number of households with rising
incomes that are now increasingly meeting their caloric
requirements? What types of micronutrient inadequa-
cies do they have, and what does it make sense for them
to be doing?
How good a food source is rice? Of the four micro-
nutrients of interest here, zinc has the highest nutrient
density ranking, and rice ranks 6th in zinc density
among the 32 food crops. Rice is tied for 10th place
for iron and ranks 15th for calcium. With no vitamin
A, rice—along with 11 other crops—is tied for 22nd
place, i.e., last. As assessed by its micronutrient con-
centrations per decimal (section C of table 6), rice is an
even poorer source of these four micronutrients. Based
on the weighted average of the three rice seasons, rice
ranks as the 19th best source of calcium (out of 32 food
crops), the 19th best source of iron, and the 8th best
source of zinc and is tied with 11 other food crops as
the poorest food source of vitamin A.
Up to this point, the discussion has been about
food crop production and nutrient availability and
has focused exclusively on the supply of food. How
well do the common food crop production patterns
fulfill the nutritional requirements of the Bangladeshi
population? Table 6 presents a simple, first-cut assess-
ment that combines the purely supply-side measures
of table 5 with population-size information to provide
per capita availability measures for each food crop.
Section A shows the average nutrient availability per
household and section B shows the average nutrient
availability per farming household. In the box at the
bottom of table 6, the average household’s EARs for
each nutrient are presented. This is the mean of the
individual households’ calculated EAR, taking into
account household composition, i.e., the number,
* This implicitly assumes that households’ income deci-
sion-making and their food and nutrition decision-making
are separable.
J. L. Fiedler
age, and sex of its members, and assuming a medium
level of physical activity [23]. In 2010, the agricultural
sector of Bangladesh made available 95% of the average
household’s energy EAR, 23% of its calcium EAR, 16%
of its vitamin A EAR, 38% of its iron EAR, and 82% of
its zinc EAR; the availabilities per farming household
were 188%, 44%, 30%, 72%, and 158%, respectively.**
Section B provides a benchmark for what Bangladeshi
farming households would have available for con-
sumption if they consumed all of the food crops they
produced and sold none of them. Even under such an
extreme scenario, the availability of nutrients provided
by the Bangladeshi agricultural sector is inadequate for
Bangladesh’s population.
Section C of table 6 shows the percentage of the
total nutrient availability that is made available by each
food (adjusted for each food’s edible portion). Again,
the domination of rice is striking: it is the source of
90% of the total available energy produced by the 32
different food crops, as well as 85% of the zinc, 67% of
the calcium, and 55% of the iron. Given that rice has
relatively low nutrient density among the 32 common
food crops and is a relatively poor source of nutrients
compared with what can be produced (on average) with
other crops on a given tract of land in Bangladesh, the
fact that rice plays such predominant role as the food
source of nutrients in Bangladesh is surprising. Rice
accounts for such a large proportion of all four of these
micronutrients produced and consumed because so
much of it is produced and consumed in Bangladesh,
both in absolute terms and relative to other food crops.
The preeminent position of rice in both the agricul-
tural production and the food consumption patterns
of the country is a major constraint on the availability
of micronutrients in the diet of Bangladeshis. Diver-
sity is severely lacking. Those food crops other than
rice that are cultivated are planted by relatively few
farmers on relatively little land area and produce such
limited quantities that they do not make much of a
contribution to the nutrient intakes of the Bangladeshi
population.
** The EAR is the daily required intake measure used to
assess the nutrient intake of a group or population. The EAR
is the average daily nutrient intake level that is estimated to
meet the requirements of half of the healthy individuals in
a particular life-stage and sex group. Being the estimated
median requirement, it exceeds the needs of half of the group
and falls short of the needs of the other half. The objective
of public nutrition policy, therefore, should be to attain an
average intake for the entire population that is greater than
the EAR in order to reduce the percentage of the population
with inadequate intakes. How much greater than the median
EAR level public policy should strive to achieve in any par-
ticular population, however, will depend on the distribution
of intakes, which is generally unobservable for the entire
population. See Institute of Medicine [25] for more details.
Agriculture–nutrition nexus in Bangladesh 497

TABLE 7. Apparent nutrient intake status of farming households in Bangladesh, 2010a

No. of Farming households

apparent intake Cum.
inadequacies No. % percent
None 1,805,790 12 12
1 2,590,452 17 29
2 4,111,015 27 56
3 2,940,508 19 75
4 3,718,075 25 100
Total 15,165,840 100

No. of Farming households Type of apparent nutrient inadequacy

apparent intake
inadequacies No. % Vitamin A Calcium Zinc Iron
0 1,805,790 11.9
1 71,971 0.5 1
1 2,309,927 15.2 1
1 208,553 1.4 1
2 2,957,631 19.5 1 1
2 16,784 0.1 1 1
2 1,048,385 6.9 1 1
2 88,215 0.6 1 1
3 1,861,821 12.3 1 1 1
3 689,644 4.5 1 1 1
3 389,042 2.6 1 1 1
4 3,718,075 24.5 1 1 1 1
Totals 15,165,838 100.0
a. Not all possible combinations of nutrient inadequacies were found.

TABLE 8. Nutrient availability, nutrient intake, and nutrient adequacy status of farming households in
Bangladesh, 2010, measured relative to each household’s specific EARa
Households with nutrient inadequacies
Average household-specific Apparent intake-based
EAR Availability-based estimates estimates
Prevalence Prevalence
Nutrient Mean Median No. (%) No. (%)
Energy 11,301 10,725 974,274 6 8,313,011 55
Calcium 4,007 3,832 1,042,620 7 13,062,741 86
Vitamin A 1,855 1,750 7,029,844 46 9,315,928 61
Iron 103 98 1,120,145 7 4,884,976 32
Zinc 43 40 1,017,323 7 7,242,661 48
HH: Household. EAR: Estimated Average Requirement.
a. Available from food crop production. Intakes are the estimated apparent consumption based on data from the HIES
consumption module.

Nutrient requirements, intakes, and intake
adequacies of Bangladeshi households
The analysis now narrows to only farming households
to take a closer look at their nutrition-related food
production and consumption behaviors in order to
better understand how these behaviors affect this
subpopulation’s own nutrient intake levels and those
of the country as a whole.
Table 7 shows the estimated prevalence of inadequate
nutrient intakes by number and type of micronutrient.
Multiple micronutrient inadequacies are the norm and
plague an estimated 71% of the farming population. As
may be seen in the top panel, only 12% of Bangladeshi
498 J. L. Fiedler

TABLE 9. Top food crop sources of available energy, calcium, iron, and zinc

Farming households planting

Cal- Vita- Total
kcal cium min A Iron Zinc production Energy (kcal/
rank rank rank rank rank Food crop (1,000s of MT) No. % HH/d)
1 1 NS 1 1 1. Rice–boro 18,119 9,645,394 64 18,734
2 2 NS 3 2 2. Rice–aman 9,332 7,917,324 52 11,755
3 5 NS 7 3 3. Rice–aus 1,789 2,134,820 14 8,357
Rice–all 29,253 11,981,055 79 24,349
4 9 NS 4 4 4. Wheat 538 1,387,913 9 3,600
5 7 NS 6 7 5. Potato 2,219 1,641,022 11 2,853
6 6 17 5 6 6. Pulses 310 1,571,917 10 1,904
7 4 NS 2 5 7. Turmeric 219 751,980 5 2,829
8 8 5 9 8 8. Jack fruit 760 3,244,666 21 603
9 3 4 8 9 9. Other vegetables 554 1,409,203 9 485
10 11 11 11 10 10. Other fruits 362 1,945,704 13 342
11 10 NS 10 11 11. Bean 165 2,052,059 14 137
HH, household; MT, metric ton; NS: Not a source of vitamin A.

farming households had adequate apparent intakes of
all four of the micronutrients. At the other extreme,
25% had apparent intake inadequacies of all four. The
bottom panel shows the 12 different combinations of
apparent intake inadequacies that were found.
Table 8 shows the nutrient requirements (EAR),
nutrient availability, nutrient intake, and nutrient
adequacy of the 15 million farming households, juxta-
posing the nutrient availability and apparent nutrient
intake measures. The differences between the nutrient
content of the food that farming households are pro-
ducing and the food they are apparently consuming are
vast. The availability-based estimates of the prevalence
of inadequacies range from 6% for energy to 46% for
vitamin A (a clear outlier) and average 15%. The appar-
ent intake-based estimates are much higher, ranging
from 32% for iron to 86% for calcium and averaging
56%. The differences in the availability versus appar-
ent intake prevalence measures vary substantially by
nutrient. The largest difference is for calcium, for which
the prevalence estimates of apparent intake include 12
million more households than the availability-based
measure. The next largest differences in prevalence
rates are 7.3 million households for energy, 6.2 million
for zinc, and 3.8 million for iron. The smallest differ-
ence is that for vitamin A, for which the prevalence of
both measures is high.
The large differences in these prevalence measures
reflect what Bangladeshi farming households do with
their produce and reveal that there exists significant
potential for improving farmers’ nutrient status.* For
* This again implicitly assumes the separability of house-
holds’ income decision-making and their food and nutrition
decision-making.
all four micronutrients, farmers could increase their
intake by increasing the percentage of those foods
they already produce that are rich in each micronutri-
ent, but of which they may sell at least a substantial
portion. The extent to which farming households are
aware of the tradeoff they are making between income
and nutritional status is an important question to be
addressed as part of a next step in developing a com-
prehensive agriculture-for-nutrition-based strategy.
What are the key food sources of the nutrients avail-
able and apparently consumed in Bangladesh? Table 9
shows the top food crop sources of available energy, cal-
cium, iron, and zinc for both the total farming popula-
tion and the subset of farmers that produce each of the
top food crops. Nutrient-specific rankings of the crops
are identified in the first columns (from the left) of the
table. These four nutrients (all but vitamin A) share the
same top 11 food crop sources. Vitamin A (again) is
the outlier: its top 11 food crop sources include only 4
of those of the other nutrients. Vitamin A’s top 11 food
crop sources are presented in table 10, along with the
crops’ contents of the other 4 nutrients.
Both table 9 and table 10 report the percentage of
farming households producing each of the crops, the
share of production that farming households appar-
ently consume from their own production of the spe-
cific crop in question, the average nutrient availability
per farming household (independently of whether or
not they grow the specific crop in question), and the
average nutrient availability per farming household
that grows some of each crop. It is important to dis-
tinguish the average nutrient availability in these two
subpopulations of farming households, because they
are likely to reflect important differences in farmers’
receptivity to different nutrition-enhancing policies.
 Agriculture–nutrition nexus in Bangladesh 499

Nutrient availability Nutrient availability

per Farming HH Planting this Crop per Day per All Farming HH per Day
Vitamin A Vitamin A
Calcium (µg RAE/ Iron (mg/ Zinc (mg/ Energy Calcium (µg RAE/ Iron (mg/ Zinc (mg/
(mg/HH/d) HH/d) HH/d) HH/d) (kcal/HH/d) (mg/HH/d) HH/d) HH/d) HH/d)
1,148 0 40.1 56.6 11,914 730 — 25.53 36.01
720 0 25.2 35.5 6,137 376 — 13.15 18.54
512 0 17.9 25.3 1,176 72 — 2.52 3.55
1,492 0 52.2 73.6 19,236 1,178 — 41.22 58.13
361 0 41.2 31.1 329 33 — 3.77 2.85
445 0 28.9 10.7 309 48 — 3.13 1.16
544 13 30.3 15.0 197 56   1 3.14 1.56
1,463 0 331.1 34.8 140 73 — 16.42 1.72
218 96 3.8 2.7 129 47 21 0.82 0.58
840 1,207 16.9 5.1 45 78 112 1.57 0.47
92 82 2.0 1.9 44 12 11 0.26 0.25
95 0 4.3 1.1 18 13 - 0.59 0.15

To the extent that farmers are already familiar with a
crop and cultivating it—as opposed to their considering
planting it for the first time—it is likely that encour-
aging them to plant more of it in order to improve
their nutritional status will require considerably less
behavioral change and will entail a shorter, more direct
pathway to improving nutritional status. Farmers who
are already familiar with a crop will confront a less
complex decision-making process, involving less risk
and uncertainty, about whether they should expand the
area they already plant in a crop that they are already
producing, as opposed to their having to choose to
plant a crop with which they are unfamiliar.
So too, those who are already producing a particular
crop confront a less complex issue in deciding whether
or not to consume more and sell less of that crop in
order to improve the household’s nutritional intake,
as opposed to having to determine whether or not to
plant the crop and then having to decide how much of
it to consume and how much of it to sell.
As already noted, caloric adequacy has been the
primary concern of the overwhelming share of Bang-
ladeshi farming households until only very recently.
Now, with growing incomes and growing productivity
levels ensuring more households of adequate energy
supplies, how might households—and particularly
farming households—better address their nutritional
needs other than their energy needs, i.e., how can they
improve their micronutrient intakes and status?
It is important to bear in mind that this is a simpli-
fied, exploratory analysis that does not include the
production and consumption of fish, livestock, or
poultry, nor does it take into account income consid-
erations. Even with this in mind, however, the analysis
here suggests that the agricultural sector’s ability to
provide sufficient food of adequate nutritional con-
tent falls well short of the country’s needs. Of the five
nutrients considered here, only energy is produced in
sufficient quantity to adequately fulfill the EARs of the
general population. Looking at the average per capita
availability per farming household alone, however
(see the box at the bottom of table 6), the availability
of energy and zinc exceeds their EARs if one does not
take into account how farming households dispose of
their production.
As may be seen in table 11, for all five of the top food
sources of each of the four micronutrients analyzed
here, the mean apparent intake quantities of house-
holds with adequate intakes are significantly higher
than the mean intake quantities of those with inad-
equate intakes. According to t-tests of all 20 pairs of
the mean differences of households with adequate and
inadequate intake levels, the differences were signifi-
cant at above the 99% confidence level. As shown in the
right-hand column, for each of the four micronutrients,
the average quantity apparently consumed by farming
households with adequate micronutrient intake levels
was between 210% and 712% greater than the average
quantity apparently consumed by farming households
with inadequate intakes of the micronutrient.*
Farming households that produce the crops that are
among those providing the most micronutrients are
more likely to consume some of those crops, are more
likely to have higher intakes of those micronutrients,
and are less likely to have inadequate intakes of those
micronutrients. In other words, not surprisingly, it
* This calculation is exclusive of the five crops for which the
mean quantity apparently consumed by farming households
was equal to zero.
TABLE 10. Top food crop sources of available vitamin A produced in Bangladesh, 2010 500
Nutrient availability Nutrient availability
Farming HHs planting Per farming household planting this crop per day Per farming household per year
Total
production Energy Calcium Vitamin A Energy Calcium Vitamin A
(1,000s of (kcal/ (mg/ (µg RAE/ Iron (mg/ Zinc (mg/ (kcal/ (mg/ (µg RAE/ Iron (mg/ Zinc (mg/
Rank Food crop MT/year) No. % HH/d) HH/d) HH/d) HH/d) HH/d) HH/d) HH/d) HH/d) HH/d) HH/d)
1 Pumpkin 198 1,276,388 8 111 89 1,570 3.4 1.4 9.3 7.5 132 0.3 0.1
2 Mango 625 4,493,258 30 248 38 145 0.5 0.2 73.4 11.3 43 0.1 0.0
3 Perbol/ 145 236,587 2 687 553 13,990 5.0 4.0 10.7 8.6 218 0.1 0.1
carrot
4 Other veg- 554 1,409,203 9 485 840 1,207 16.9 5.1 45.0 78.1 112 1.6 0.5
etables
5 Jack fruit 760 3,244,666 21 603 218 96 3.8 2.7 129.0 46.7 21 0.8 0.6
6 Green chili 382 1,568,147 10 267 93 320 6.9 1.7 27.6 9.7 33 0.7 0.2
7 Tomato 230 630,597 4 179 100 419 2.7 1.7 7.5 4.1 17 0.1 0.1
8 Ripe 109 820,035 5 143 88 201 0.4 0.3 7.7 4.7 11 0.0 0.0
papaya
9 Spinach 107 1,267,574 8 228 186 83 3.6 0.6 19.1 15.6 7 0.3 0.0
10 Guava 146 1,838,228 12 148 39 67 0.6 0.5 17.9 4.7 8 0.1 0.1
11 Other 362 1,945,704 13 342 92 82 2.0 1.9 43.9 11.8 11 0.3 0.2
fruits
HH, household; MT, metric ton; NS: Not a source of vitamin A.

TABLE 11. Differences in the mean consumption levels of the top five food sources of key nutrients by household intake adequacy status
Intake Average
adequacy adequate
status quantity
(intake White Ladies’ as a % of
relative to gourd/ Perbol/ Puisak/ Other Bean / finger/ inadequate
Nutrient EAR) No. of HHs pumpkin carrot spinach vegetables Turmeric Garlic Pulses Wheat lobey okra quantitya
Food is among 5 highest nutrient VA, Ca, VA, Ca,
VA VA VA, Fe, Zn Ca, Fe, Zn Ca Ca Zn Fe
concentrations per decimal for: Fe, Zn Fe, Zn
Energy Adequate 6,852,829 .0971 .0176 .0821 .1004 .0594 .0528 .1219 .1070 .1447 .0420
Inadequate 8,313,011 .0738 .0139 .0851 .0861 .0418 .0392 .0886 .0789 .1283 .0225
Total 15,165,840 .0844 .0156 .0838 .0925 .0498 .0454 .1036 .0916 .1357 .0313
Vitamin A Adequate 5,849,912 .1046 .0286 .1229 .1127 .0419
J. L. Fiedler

Inadequate 9,315,928 .0716 .0074 .0592 .0798 .0247 210

Total 15,165,840 .0844 .0156 .0838 .0925 .0313
 Agriculture–nutrition nexus in Bangladesh 501

For each nutrient, household intake adequacy status is determined by the household’s nutrient intakes relative to its EAR (IOM 2006) [24]. The EAR for each household is calculated based on the sum of
the household members’ age- and gender-specific EARs. Households with nutrient intakes < EAR are classified as having inadequate nutrient intake. Those with ≥ EAR are classified as having adequate
appears that the mix of food crops that farmers plant
affects their nutritional status.
712

513

505
As may be seen in table 12, there is a system-
atic relationship between local agricultural biodiver-
sity and farming households’ nutritional status. As
the number of different crops planted by a farmer
.0334
.0026
.0313
.0336
.0024
.0313
.0334
.0027
.0313
increases, the percentage of farming households whose
crop-provided nutrient availability is less than the
EAR decreases, the prevalence of inadequate nutrient
intakes decreases, and the magnitude of the EAR gap
.1387
.0984
.1357

(nutrient intake as a percentage of the EAR) decreases.

It is important to note that farming households with
more land are more likely to cultivate more different
kinds of crops. The relationship, however, is not par-
.0982
.0000
.0916

ticularly strong, although it is statistically significant.

The bivariate correlation coefficient between the total
land area planted in crops and the number of crops
planted is 0.40. Regressing the number of food crops
.1105
.0110
.1036

and the area planted on each of the four measures of

micronutrient inadequacy reveals that the relationship
between the number of crops planted and inadequate
a. Calculations exclude the five observations for which the quantity consumed by farmers with inadequate intake is equal to zero.

nutrient intake is substantially greater than the rela-

t-tests of the mean differences of households with adequate and inadequate intake levels are all significant at above the 99 level.
.0487
.0000
.0454

tionship between the total area planted in food crops

and inadequate nutrient intake. As shown in table 13,
the importance of land area in accounting for differ-
ences in nutrient intake adequacy varies substantially
.0535
.0000
.0498
.0537
.0000
.0498
.0534
.0000
.0498

by micronutrient. The standardized beta coefficients

of the number of food crops planted are (in absolute
terms) from 2 to 10 times larger than those of the total
land area planted in food crops. Moreover, two of the
.0964
.0441
.0925
.0946
.0633
.0925

coefficients of the total land area variable are positive;

that is, they suggest that increasing land area is associ-
ated with increasing inadequate intakes of vitamin and
calcium. In short, the number of food crops grown
.0879
.0274
.0838
.0882
.0287
.0838
.0846
.0724
.0838

appears to be a more important factor than land area

in shaping the micronutrient status of Bangladeshis.
The analysis to this point has found a number of
food cropping patterns that are associated with a lower
EAR, estimated average requirement; HH, household; VA, vitamin A.

likelihood of having inadequate nutrient intakes: cul-

tivating one or more of the most nutrient-dense food
crops raised, cultivating one or more of the food crops
that produce the greatest nutrient availability per unit
of land area, and growing more different types of food
Source: Author’s calculations based on 2010 HIES.

crops. It has also been noted that although incomes and

health indicators have been improving over the past
2,103,099
13,062,741
15,165,840
10,280,864
4,884,976
15,165,840
15,165,840
7,242,661
15,165,840

decades, nutritional status is lagging. Are Bangladeshi

farming households aware of the relationship between
their agricultural practices and their nutritional status?
Do they know, for instance, how they might change
Inadequate

Inadequate

Inadequate

the mix of food crops they cultivate to improve the

Adequate

Adequate

Adequate

nutritional status of their households? Rabbani’s recent

Total

Total

Total

comparative analysis of the 2005 and 2010 HIES

[28]—which reveals that there has been almost no
nutrient intake.

change in Bangladeshis’ dietary diversity over the past

Calcium

half-decade (fig. 1)—suggests that there is a need to

Zinc

address this question and to accelerate the pace of

Iron

change in food cropping patterns in Bangladesh.

502 J. L. Fiedler

TABLE 12. Indicators of farming household nutrient intake adequacy by number of crops planted
Energy Vitamin A
Household Household
prevalence HHs whose prevalence HHs whose
Cumulative of crop- of crop-
Number Number percent of inadequate Intake as a provided inadequate Intake as a provided
of crops of farming farming intake percent of availability intake percent of availability
planted households households (< EAR) EAR is < EARa (< EAR) EAR is < EARa
1 2,739,576 18 57.1 98.8 13.5 69.5 84.8 82.3
2 3,926,676 44 58.6 97.5 7.3 66.9 88.1 73.3
3 2,680,343 62 57.7 98.3 6.3 63.1 93.5 43.8
4 1,732,217 73 54.3 101.4 3.4 58.9 105.7 23.9
5 1,257,848 81 52.6 103.9 2.0 53.4 109.7 11.2
6 816,314 87 51.1 104.5 0.8 57.1 107.0 9.9
7 590,160 91 47.5 106.7 0.0 48.7 121.5 1.7
8 450,035 94 45.3 111.3 0.0 46.3 126.3 1.9
9 265,205 95 42.2 109.7 0.0 40.4 126.0 2.5
EAR, estimated average requirement; HH, household.
a. Households whose consumption from own production provided less than the household’s EAR.

TABLE 13. Relationship of inadequate nutrient intake to the number of crops planted and the total area planted in food crops
in Bangladesh, 2010
Number of
Unstandard- Standardized crops beta as
Dependent Independent ized coeffi- Standard coefficients: a percent of
variable variable cients: B error beta t Significance area beta
Energy (Constant) .6202613 .0002147 2888.856 0.000
Total food –.0001657 .0000006 –.0743566 –267.307 0.000
crop area
Number of –.0126598 .0000520 –.0676737 –243.283 0.000 91
food crops
Vitamin A (Constant) .7082944 .0002088 3392.689 0.000
Total food .0001284 .0000006 .0588960 212.975 0.000
crop area
Number of –.0319009 .0000506 –.1743502 –630.472 0.000 –296
food crops
Calcium (Constant) .9143101 .0001492 6130.056 0.000
Total food .0000215 .0000004 .0139145 50.005 0.000
crop area
Number of –.0157053 .0000361 –.1208942 –434.459 0.000 –869
food crops
Zinc (Constant) .5451686 .0002159 2524.817 0.000
Total food –.0000802 .0000006 –.0358625 –128.666 0.000
crop area
Number of –.0152250 .0000523 –.0810898 –290.931 0.000 226
food crops
Iron (Constant) .3887316 .0002019 1925.169 0.000
Total food –.0000205 .0000006 –.0097849 –35.120 0.000
crop area
Number of –.0176238 .0000489 –.1003370 –360.124 0.000 1025
food crops
 Agriculture–nutrition nexus in Bangladesh 503

Calcium Iron Zinc

Household Household Household
prevalence HHs whose prevalence HHs whose prevalence HHs whose
of crop- of crop- of crop-
inadequate Intake as a provided inadequate Intake as a provided inadequate Intake as a provided
intake percent of availability Intake percent of availability intake percent of availability
(< EAR) EAR is < EARa (< EAR) EAR is < EARa (< EAR) EAR is < EARa
91.3 52.6 17.5 37.2 70.8 17.8 51.1 104.4 16.4
87.6 57.7 7.4 34.5 73.0 8.4 51.2 104.5 7.4
87.1 59.3 5.5 33.4 74.5 5.9 48.6 105.2 5.9
86.2 61.5 2.4 32.8 76.6 3.2 50.5 107.3 2.3
83.0 66.5 1.6 29.2 80.5 1.6 43.2 112.2 1.3
84.3 64.4 0.7 26.8 79.4 1.5 44.0 111.8 0.7
79.7 71.1 0.0 25.4 85.0 0.0 44.1 114.2 0.0
78.5 72.5 0.0 24.1 86.9 0.0 32.2 121.4 0.0
73.9 82.9 0.0 18.6 93.3 0.0 37.1 120.1 0.0

8 2005 2010

6
Average HDDS

0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Consumption decile

FIG. 1, Average Household Dietary Diversity Score (HDDS) by consumption decile, 2005
and 2010. Source: Rabbani [28], based on HIES 2005 and 2010 data

How might Bangladeshi farmers modify their crop-
ping patterns to improve the nutritional intake status
of their households? Table 14 shows the five most
common food cropping patterns in Bangladesh out
of the 1,156 possible combinations of the 34 different
food crops planted in Bangladesh. The table is divided
into an upper panel A and a lower panel B. Each panel
has sets of indicators and is labeled as section 1, 2, 3,
or 4. In 2010, 3,864,816 households (25.5% of those
cultivating one or more crops) planted one of these five
patterns. Panel A of table 14 shows the average total
number of Adult Consumption Equivalents (ACEs)
per farming household using each cropping pattern
(section 1), the households’ EAR (section 2), the aver-
age total area planted per household (section 3) and the
nutrient availability provided by each specific cropping
pattern (section 4). The total nutrient availability is
a function of the crops selected, the amount of area
planted in each crop, and the average yield. Panel B of
table 15 shows the prevalence of inadequate availability
provided by each of the cropping patterns (section 1).
At the median, the three most common cropping pat-
terns provide adequate availability of energy, vitamin
A, zinc, and iron for 100% of the households, but they
do not provide adequate availability of calcium for
any of these farming households. At the mean, these
levels of adequate availability dip only slightly for
cropping pattern 3, rice–Aman only, where 2% of these
households have inadequate availability of vitamin A
and zinc. Cropping pattern 5 (rice–Boro, rice–Aman,
mango, and jackfruit) also produces enough nutrients
to have nearly zero inadequate availability across the
five nutrients. The only exception for cropping pattern
5 is that for calcium it leaves a mean inadequate avail-
ability of 20% of the households planting these four
crops. By the measure of the prevalence of inadequate
availability, the poorest performing cropping pattern is
pattern 4, which consists of planting only mango and
having a mean of only five decimals and a median of
only one decimal planted in mango: i.e., the household
504 J. L. Fiedler

TABLE 14. The five most common food cropping patterns in Bangladesh, 2010
PANEL A Section 1 Section 2
Household EARs
Number of farming Average ACEs
Crops planted households per HH Energy Vitamin A Calcium Iron
1. Rice–boro and 1,684,437 Mean 3.53 10,797 1,776 3,821 98.2
aman 11.1% Median 3.33 10,186 1,644 3,582 91.8
2. Rice–boro only 1,368,360 Mean 3.76 11,504 1,897 4,084 103.9
9.0% Median 3.62 11,025 1,858 3,832 100.2
3. Rice–aman only 347,221 Mean 3.69 11,298 1,863 4,002 101.7
2.3% Median 3.53 10,775 1,750 3,832 97.0
4. Mango only 267,665 Mean 3.05 9,330 1,547 3,328 85.8
1.8% Median 3.05 9,500 1,572 3,332 87.8
5. Rice–boro, rice– 197,134 Mean 3.68 11,250 1,831 3,923 101.5
aman, mango, and 1.3% Median 3.65 11,125 1,893 3,915 100.2
jackfruit
All farmers 15,165,840 Mean 3.70 11,301 1,855 4,007 102.5
Median 3.51 10,725 1,750 3,832 97.6

PANEL B Section 1 Section 2

Number HH prevalence of inadequate availability (%) HH prevalence of

of farming Vitamin Vitamin
Crops planted households Energy A Calcium Zinc Iron Energy A Calcium
1. Rice–boro and 1,684,437 Mean 0 0 100 0 0 57 67 88
aman 11% Median 0 0 100 0 0 100 100 100
2. Rice–boro only 1,368,360 Mean 0 0 100 0 0 57 72 95
9% Median 0 0 100 0 0 100 100 100
3. Rice–aman only 347,221 Mean 0 2 100 2 0 56 80 92
2% Median 0 0 100 0 0 100 100 100
4. Mango only 267,665 Mean 54 71 16 80 83 62 51 83
2% Median 100 100 0 100 100 100 100 100
5. Rice–boro, rice– 197,134 Mean 0 0 20 0 0 62 58 88
aman, mango, and 1% Median 0 0 0 0 0 100 100 100
jackfruit
All farmers 15,165,840 Mean 6 7 46 7 7 55 61 86
Median 0 0 0 0 0 100 100 100
ACE, adult consumption equivalent; EAR, estimated average requirement; HH, household.
a. 1 decimal = 0.01 acre.

has essentially one or a small number of mango trees,
and nothing else. Not surprisingly—given both the
single crop and the very small size of the area—this
cropping pattern (admittedly an extreme one) pro-
vides the poorest availability of nutrients among these
five most common cropping patterns: it results in a
high prevalence of inadequate availabilities for all five
of the nutrients. A comparison of the prevalence of
inadequate nutrient availability for each of these five
cropping patterns with that of all Bangladeshi farm-
ers (shown as the last row in the panel, “All farmers”)
reveals that with the exception of pattern 4 (mango
only), at the mean, these patterns outperform the
overall cropping pattern averages for energy, vitamin
A, zinc, and iron.
The indicators in panel B, sections 2 and 3, show
the consumption-based nutrient intake measures. The
prevalence of inadequate intake for each of the crop-
ping patterns is strikingly higher than the prevalence
of availability—again, providing insight into the sig-
nificant nutritional impact of how Bangladeshi farming
households make use of the food crops they produce.
Although the farmers who practice these cropping
patterns produce foods with significant amounts of
 Agriculture–nutrition nexus in Bangladesh 505

Section 3 Section 4
Nutrient availability from crop production
Area planted
Zinc (decimalsa) Energy Vitamin A Calcium Iron Zinc
40.9 147 16,566,216 0 1,014,908 35,499 50,063
37.0 110 12,448,800 0 762,660 26,676 37,620
43.3 92 13,168,149 0 806,730 28,217 39,794
40.0 56 8,736,000 0 535,200 18,720 26,400
42.6 109 7,523,560 0 460,921 16,122 22,736
40.0 60 4,368,000 0 267,600 9,360 13,200
34.6 5 87,011 50,868 13,386 174 54
33.0 1 26,000 15,200 4,000 52 16
43.7 223 21,060,282 41,173 1,319,466 45,472 63,648
44.0 162 16,019,760 14,750 995,184 34,588 48,316

42.8 161 15,470,960 235,438 1,064,494 42,538 46,457

40.0 99 8,736,000 9,300 609,720 21,840 26,488

Section 3 Section 4
inadequate intake Inadequate intake minus inadequate availability
(%) HH nutrient intake as a percent of EAR (%)
Vitamin Vitamin
Zinc Iron Energy A Calcium Zinc Iron Energy A Calcium Zinc Iron
51 35 97.8 85.7 71.9 104.3 57.2 57 67 –12 51 35
100 0 95.5 71.3 64.2 98.3 48.2 100 100 0 100 0
54 40 98.6 79.1 67.8 102.4 50.0 57 72 –5 54 40
100 0 96.1 67.8 60.8 97.1 43.4 100 100 0 100 0
47 33 99.3 68.4 70.2 103.5 48.0 56 78 –8 45 33
0 0 96.4 49.3 62.8 102.1 38.8 100 100 0 0 0
44 27 98.2 106.6 80.8 111.0 64.0 8 –20 66 –36 –55
0 0 92.6 90.5 72.5 103.1 54.1 0 0 100 –100 –100
61 51 94.8 99.1 64.3 93.9 54.3 62 58 69 61 51
100 100 88.6 70.8 55.6 83.8 40.3 100 100 100 100 100

48 32 100.9 98.0 76.2 107.7 60.7 48 55 40 40 26

0 0 97.3 80.8 68.0 101.7 51.4 100 100 100 0 0

nutrients, so that their households have (with the
exception of calcium) nearly 0% inadequate nutri-
ent availability for four of the five cropping patterns,
their consumption of these foods is substantially less,
leaving them with high prevalence rates of inadequate
nutrient intakes. These (again) are the outcome of
farming households selling substantial amounts of their
product to generate income to meet other family needs
(which may include gaining access to the land, which
many do not own). Could these farming households
be doing things differently? For example, could they
modify their selection of crops or their mix of crops
(the proportion of their total area that they plant in
each) so as to produce more nutrients? Or, could they
sell less of some of the more nutrient dense crops,
particularly those for which their households have
inadequate intakes?
Table 15 provides a simple example of the net impact
of substituting 1 decimal of Boro rice for 1 decimal of
each of four alternative crops that contain multiple
micronutrients, are micronutrient dense, and also pro-
duce high concentrations of nutrients per decimal. The
example is based on the “all farmers” average household
EAR requirement (panel A, section 2 of table 14) and
506 J. L. Fiedler

TABLE 15. Exploring the size of EAR gaps through an agriculture lens: the net nutrient impacts of substituting other food
crops for 1 decimal of Boro rice
Net impact of replacing 1 decimal
in boro rice for 1 of:
Household Household Apparent Patal/
EAR apparent EAR Puisak/ Ladies’ perbol/ Other
Nutrient requirement intake shortfall spinach finger/okra carrot vegetables
Energy (kcal/day)Mean 11,301 11,101 200 –115 –163 –150 –35
Median 10,725 10,250 264
Vitamin A (µg Mean 1,855 1,686 169 647 74 25 268
RAE/day) Median 1,750 1,385 310
Calcium (mg/day) Mean 4,007 2,266 1,740 294 20 935 402
Median 3,832 1,928 1,681
Iron (mg/day) Mean 102.5 73.7 28.8 12.4 0.5 –0.1 5.2
Median 97.6 66.2 28.9
Zinc (mg/day) Mean 42.8 44.4 –1.6 1.4 0.0 -0.3 1.1
Median 40.0 40.8 –0.6
Number of decimals that would need to be substituted to close the EAR gap at the mean nutrient intake level
1. Vitamin A 0.3 2.3 25.9 0.3
2. Calcium 5.9 87.0 0.3 0.0
3. Iron 2.3 57.6 NAa 0.1
4. Zinc NAa NAa NAa NAa
EAR, estimated average requirement; HH, household; RAE, retinol activity equivalent.
a. NA = Not applicable: There is no EAR gap for this micronutrient (zinc), or the food does not contain the particular micronutrient or the
substitution results in a net reduction in this particular micronutrient.

reports the household’s average apparent intake and
its average EAR shortfalls, given its household com-
position. How much change would this require? One
decimal is 1% of an acre, 40 by 40 meters.* The sub-
stitution of one decimal of rice for one decimal of one
of these four alternative crops would entail modifying
the equivalent of 0.6% of the median or 1.0% of the
mean Bangladesh farming household’s total cultivated
area. In short, we are not talking about a large amount
of land in absolute or relative terms. The box at the
bottom of table 15 takes this analysis a step further,
showing the number of decimals that would need to
be planted with each of these four crops in order to
entirely close the EAR gap at the mean nutrient intake
level of each of the five nutrients.
These are but simple, provocative examples. What
is needed is a more systematic and comprehensive
approach, which could be addressed as a two-step
process. Paralleling the seminal, smaller-scale study
of McIntyre and colleagues [30], the first step would
consist of optimizing farming households’ nutrient
intake status by identifying how each household could
improve its nutrient intake, while investigating the
* To provide a reference point for this size, the classic
Bangladeshi home garden study of Marsh [29] reported that
at baseline 50% of the target population already had a home
garden, and the mean size was 61 m2. At endline, the size had
expanded to 131 m2.
possibility of changing only the mix of crops that it
currently produces and consumes, and altering the
amount of land that is planted in each food. This
would identify one set of achievable options and would
require relatively minor modifications in the behavior
of farmers. A second step would consider changing
the mix of crops farmers produce and would include
the introduction of new crops that the farmers are not
yet familiar with. These two modeling exercises would
bracket the results of the optimization exercise. The
third step would attempt to take into account Bangla-
deshi farmers’ cultural norms, perceived risks, rates of
returns, uncertainties, and opportunity sets [31, 32].
This work is now under way.
Conclusions
This exploratory analysis of the agricultural module of
the Bangladesh HIES has identified several reasons for
the country’s lagging nutritional status and has been
useful for better understanding the nutritional implica-
tions of the country’s rice monoculture. Of the 32 major
food crops cultivated in Bangladesh, rice is second only
to banana in the amount of energy provided per cul-
tivated area. Although it does a good job of providing
calories, rice contains no vitamin A and relatively small
amounts of other micronutrients compared with other
Agriculture–nutrition nexus in Bangladesh
crops grown in the country, its nutrient density is low,
and it is a relatively poor source of nutrients compared
with what is produced (on average) on a given tract of
land with other crops. Still, rice is the source of 90%
of the total available energy, 85% of the zinc, 67% of
the calcium, and 55% of the iron produced and made
available by the plant-based agriculture sector. Despite
its being the source of such a large proportion of total
nutrient intake in Bangladesh, rice is part of the nutri-
tion problem of Bangladesh and contributes to nutri-
ent inadequacies because it has low intrinsic nutrient
content, produces smaller quantities of nutrients for a
given land area, and is a monoculture, providing (by
definition) low dietary diversity as a result of its crowd-
ing out other food crops.
Other related factors that have been identified as
contributing to the poor nutritional status of Bangla-
deshi farmers are that relatively few of them choose to
plant crops with high nutrient densities, and relatively
few choose to plant crops that produce large concentra-
tions of nutrients per decimal. Furthermore, those who
do produce crops that provide substantial quantities
of micronutrients generally do not consume enough
of those crops themselves—choosing, instead to sell
a large proportion of them—so that their households
suffer from high levels of nutrient inadequacies.
This study has shown that the analysis of the agri-
cultural modules of household interview surveys can
provide a useful general diagnostic tool for better
understanding a country’s current nutrient production
possibilities, as well as providing a general analytic
framework for considering how a country’s nutrient
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