Abstract:
Food security is mostly important for all the living people especially in the
rural or under developed area where people are not conscious about food and
nutrition. The study briefs out the existing issues of food security in haor area
of Nikli Upzila. The overall objectives of this study were to examine the
present socioeconomic status of the fishing household, which factors were
constraints for food security and identified the problems of accessing foods in
Nikli Upazila of Kishoreganj district. A total of 110 sample respondents were
interviewed by using simple random sampling techniques. Both descriptive
and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. Socioeconomic status
and problems faced by the respondents were assessed by using descriptive
statistics and presented in tabular form. The extent of dietary diversity which
was used to assess the food security status was assessed using descriptive
statistics also. The factor determining the food security status of the small
scale fishing community at Nikli Upazila was assessed using binary logistic
regression analysis. After analyzing the respondent data, result showed that
the average family size of sample households was 5.32 and 69.09 % of the
survey respondents were found to have no education. Besides among the
respondents 59.09 % hold yearly income from BDT 160000-190000. After
analyzing, it was found majority of the expenditure spent on food items which
hold 55.3 % of total cost. The result showed that age of the respondent, food
expenditure, education, access to information having loan were significant
factors those affect food security status of the fishing households. Various
issues like climate change, population growth, increasing cost of food,
uncontrolled market etc. were found to be encountered by respondents in the
research region when attempting to obtain food. The respondents ranked the
increasing cost of food items as the most serious problem among the six
challenges. Therefore, it is highly needed to emphasis government support to
ensure the food security.