Ahmed Md Rashid
Department of Social Sciences, Wageningen University & Research, the Netherlands.
Department of Agricultural Finance and Banking, Sylhet Agricultural University, Sylhet, 3100, Bangladesh.
Heliyon. 2024 Feb 7;10(4):e25687. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e25687. eCollection 2024 Feb 29.
Floods and extreme rainfall are common climatic phenomena in Bangladesh, and farm households are more susceptible to such shocks. This paper assesses the impact of climate shocks on agricultural income and food security of farm households in Bangladesh using an extensive nationally representative dataset from the Bangladesh Integrated Household Survey 2018-19, including 5604 sample rural households in 64 districts. However, this research considered 24 districts, representing 2131 sample farm households, by developing an exogenous climate shock indicator based on data from the Yearbook of Agricultural Statistics of Bangladesh 2018. Empirical findings on the grounds of simultaneous quantile regression reveal that climate shocks substantially lower agricultural income in the study regions. However, the presence of prime-age women (15-49) in the home, the male-headed family, farmland, and livestock ownership of the household are the decisive factors that safeguard agricultural income. Applying the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES), descriptive statistics disclose that most farm households suffer at various food insecurity levels (considerably moderate, noticeably mild, and tiny severe), while the rest are at the food security level. The key finding regarding ordered probit regression uncovers that climate shocks significantly increase household food insecurity (at different levels of FIES). In other words, cropland damage due to floods and extreme rainfall reduces the food security of farm households in the study districts. On the other hand, increased farm size and educated households are profoundly protected against food insecurity. This study, therefore, recommends that raising livestock can complement agricultural income, and enhancing education would ensure households' food security in the climate-exposed areas of Bangladesh.
洪水和极端降雨是孟加拉国常见的气候现象，农户更容易受到此类冲击的影响。本文利用2018 - 19年孟加拉国综合住户调查的广泛全国代表性数据集，评估气候冲击对孟加拉国农户农业收入和粮食安全的影响，该数据集包括64个地区的5604个农村样本家庭。然而，本研究通过基于《2018年孟加拉国农业统计年鉴》的数据制定外生气候冲击指标，考虑了24个地区，代表2131个样本农户。基于联立分位数回归的实证结果表明，气候冲击显著降低了研究区域的农业收入。然而，家中有适龄妇女（15 - 49岁）、男性当家、拥有农田和牲畜是保障农业收入的决定性因素。应用粮食不安全经历量表（FIES），描述性统计显示，大多数农户处于不同程度的粮食不安全水平（相当中度、明显轻度和微小重度），而其余农户处于粮食安全水平。有序概率回归的关键发现表明，气候冲击显著增加了家庭粮食不安全程度（在不同的FIES水平上）。换句话说，洪水和极端降雨造成的农田破坏降低了研究地区农户的粮食安全。另一方面，农场规模的扩大和受过教育的家庭能有效抵御粮食不安全。因此，本研究建议，饲养牲畜可以补充农业收入，提高教育水平将确保孟加拉国气候暴露地区家庭的粮食安全。
