Per capita rice intake keeps falling: BBS

Average daily per capita rice consumption in Bangladesh maintained its declining trend in 2022, as it fell by 10 per cent to 328.9 grammes from 367.2 grammes in 2016 thanks to increased income that enable people to consume more non-rice items, according to data of the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS). 

Consumption of other non-cereal foods rose in the period, according to the BBS data released yesterday.

Mentionable, per capita consumption of rice was 416 grammes in 2010, according to the Household Income and Expenditure Survey 2022 unveiled by the BBS.

Khondaker Golam Moazzem, research director of the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), said food habits change in line with increase in income.

"In Bangladesh, some reflections of that are seen here," he said, adding, "But the rate of decline in per capital intake of rice has not fallen to the extent that was seen in other countries."

However, reduction of rice consumption and increase in consumption of non-rice is positive from the perspective of nutritious food intake, he said.

The reduction in consumption also means that the pressure to increase rice production will dissipate

— MA Sattar Mandal Emeritus professor of BAU

The latest data showed that people in urban areas consume 284.7 grammes of rice, which is 13.44 per cent lower than the national average.

But rural people take 348.1 grammes, which is 5.84 per cent higher than the national average.

As such, Bangladesh's annual human consumption requirement of rice would be over 2 crore tonnes, which was much lower than the country's estimated rice production of 3.81 crore tonnes in fiscal year 2021-22.

MA Sattar Mandal, emeritus professor of agricultural economics at the Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU), said the fall in rice consumption was a positive development.

"Rice consumption level was high and it was not good health-wise," he said, adding, "The reduction in consumption also means that the pressure to increase rice production will dissipate. This will release some land for production of other crops."

He said as consumption of non-rice items grow, aggregate demand would increase.

"On the whole, it is good. The reduction of rice consumption will create opportunity to diversify agriculture," he said.

Apart from the decline in rice intake, per capita consumption of egg also dropped between 2016 and 2022.

Per head average daily egg consumption dropped to 12.7 grammes last year from 13.6 grammes in 2016.

While per capita daily rice consumption showed a steady decline in the last 12 years, intake of protein and vegetables grew over the years, according to the latest HIES 2022.

For instance, daily average per head consumption of vegetables rose by 21 per cent to 201.9 grammes in 2022 from 167.3 grammes six years ago.

Here, people living in rural areas consumed more vegetables than the urbanites.

However, in case of fish, meat, milk and milk products, urban people are bigger consumers than rural residents, according to the HIES data.