Micro Level Study of Ethnic and Non-Ethnic Households’ Food Security and Dietary Diversity

Abstract

Although Bangladesh has achieved rice self-sufficiency, this does not imply to food security. Around 25% of the population is still food insecure. The fundamental factor is poverty. Despite improvements in many aspects of food security, the Bangladeshi people still lack dietary diversity, resulting in nutritional imbalance. The investigation's focus is on Bangladesh's northwestern region. Though numerous attempts have been made to comprehend rural people's food insecurity, ethnic minority communities are often overlooked. They make up about 1.25 percent of the Bangladeshi population. Many ethnic groups from the plains confront harsh living conditions, such as inadequate housing, contaminated drinking water, and insecurity. In this study the socioeconomic status, household food security, consumption status and dietary diversity of ethnic groups are compared with the majority Bengali community. Ethnic groups expenditure level exceeds their income. Although their income is very poor but the ethnic groups has more months’ of cereal food availability than non-ethnic groups. Most of them are landless. Whatever land they have, most of it is homestead area. They have three meals a day but their dietary diversity is not sufficient. It can be seen that 98.39% non-ethnic households and 97.04% ethnic households have access to safe drinking water. Both groups are vulnerable, marginal and poor. It is important to emphasis on poverty alleviation through income generating activities.