Projections of food demand and supply in Bangladesh: implications on food security and water demand

Abstract

The objectives of this study was to project demand for and supply of key food commodities in Bangladesh by 2030 and 2050 and assess their demand-supply gap. The scope of the forecast was confined with selected 11 food items and used almost ideal demand system (AIDS) and auto regressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) models. Projections showed that food consumption in Bangladesh will diversify over time, cereals will provide a major part of the calorie intake, but their share in total calorie supply will decrease by 2030 and 2050. The consumption of animal products and non-cereal crops will have increasing trend during the same time period. The projections showed that Bangladesh will have surplus productions of rice and maize by 2030 and deficit productions of wheat, potato, pulses, vegetables, meat, egg and fresh water fish. It will have surplus productions of rice, maize, potato, vegetable and milk by 2050 and deficit productions of wheat, pulses, fruits, meat and fresh water fish. Water demand for Boro rice production in 2030 and 2050 will increase considerably and may cause much stress on ground water source.