Food Security

ISSUE BRIEFINGS

1. What is the problem about? What are the dimensions of this problem worldwide? In your country? What are the risks?

Bangladesh has wide spread unmapped areas making it difficult to create resilience towards food security improvement, transportation, economic growth and nutrition to address hunger and end poverty.

Many countries worldwide deal with these same issues at different levels along with other issues such as flooding and the rate of first respondents. By improving the areas of which are unmapped, map data collection can help create resilience in all of these places.

Lack of Food Security in Bangladesh is the result of many factors such as climate change, including scarce water resources, rising sea level, vulnerability to extreme shocks, and changing weather patterns. Population growth, urbanization, and soil and natural resource depletion have led to degradation of Bangladesh’s land, water bodies, wetlands, and forests and pose a significant threat to the agriculture sector.

Without food security Bangladesh runs the risks of poverty, lack of access to agricultural land, and poor eating habits. Similarly, Bangladesh has one of the highest rates of child stunting at 41 percent.

References:

Country profile: Bangladesh. (n.d.). Retrieved March 29, 2016, from https://feedthefuture.gov/country/bangladesh

Kirby Kissinger

2. What solutions are offered to address / mitigate / recover from this problem? What does this mean for resilience?

Bangladesh and other countries who lack adequate geographical data suffer from many complex problems. Without strong data it is difficult to assess a country’s needs, determine risk to natural disasters and establish routs to which people can use to access facilities they may need. Feed the Future and other organizations are working in Bangladesh towards achieving a sustainable and resilient country. One way to achieve resilience is to decreasing risk through data access which is one of the aims of such organizations. An important method organizations and the people of Bangladesh are working towards resilience is by creating open special data with focus on specific regions at a time according to Feed the Future Bangladesh. A benefit of open data is that it allows anyone to contribute and anyone to access. This is one of the many ways communities such as the Khulna District in Bangladesh are achieving resilience – USAID and others are taking advantage of the opportunity to engage thousands of users on projects by engaging large human networks such as Youth Mappers, Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT), as well as other open data organizations in focusing on high demand projects such as Bangladesh. By providing geospecial data communities in Bangladesh are able to build resilience by having better means to predict risk. The power of crowed sourcing such as what is being created in Bangladesh helps increases resilience by creating transparency, awareness, access, and knowledge.

-Julia Kleine

References:

https://www.feedthefuture.gov/country/bangladesh

Capitol Hill Event Lauches University Consortium to Engage Student Mappers. Retreved March 29, 2016, from http://today.ttu.edu/posts/2015/11/capitol-hill-event-launches- university- consortium-to-engage-student-mappers

3. What is happening in the specific country you are working on with respect to this problem? Who is affected and how?

Khulna, Bangladesh

This mapping project directly supports agricultural programs in Bangladesh. Data created from this mapping effort will be used by USAID and its partners who are working with rural farming villages in Bangladesh. It is intended to help communities in the Khulna District improve land management and increase agricultural production.

The desired outcome from this project is to have an accurate and complete transportation network, along with features that can be used for agriculture such as rivers, ditches, ponds, and buildings.

The people that are affected by this would be the people located in the rural areas that actually do the farming and the labor that is needed for the farming to take place, and also the poor that had no choice but to live outside of the towns because they could not afford to live there. Also people that are locate near all of the hundreds of streams and lakes and ditches to be able to be reached the quickest without be blockaded by some kind of water. Especially in times of heavy flooding thanks to the monsoons that affect this country yearly and sometimes leave the country side in desolation. This project will help to bring services to these people in the event of a natural disaster the quickest possible such as food and water that they will desperately need.

Ian Smith

4. What are you mapping and how can mapping these features help make communities more resilient in light of this problem or in areas affected by this problem?

When considering the topic of aiding resilience, it is important to know that the central idea is to resolving challenges of capacity building, integral development, and governance itself. Definitions of resilience vary from organization to organization, but USAID defines it as “the ability of individuals, households, communities, institutions, nations, or even value chains and ecosystems to withstand crises, recover from them, and adapt so as to better withstand them” (Runde). Concerning the topic of food security in Khulna, Bangladesh, specific features are being focused on for this project to ensure resiliency for the food security in Khulna, Bangladesh.

Since Bangladesh has a tropical wet season and a dry season, agricultural land in the Khulna District of Bangladesh varies greatly depending on the season. Therefore, it is a priority for our team to map the water features in order to highlight any potential access to water in the district. Specifically, we are mapping rivers, ditches and ponds. The Rupsa River runs right through Khulna and is vital for the agriculture taking place.

Access to this river as well as the ponds in the district are what make it possible to have irrigation to the farm lands. Ponds are important due to being bodies of water that can have multiple functions, for example, fish ponds, shrimp ponds, irrigation, and hydrating livestock during the dry months. Ditches are important features to map because ditches can be used to move the water for irrigation, drain the water from low lying areas, and are often found along the roadside to prevent flooding and help keep roads open during the wet season.

In addition to mapping water bodies, buildings and roads are also a priority. It is important to establish what buildings are already in exisitence and what could be potentially usful to ensuring food security to the district. At this time, the project is not focusing on determining the types of buildings but more just making sure they are mapped for future use to a team who can determine the actual type. As for roads, the order of priority in type of roads being mapped is: national highways, regional highways, zilla roads and then unclassfied roads. Access to these roads are important for mapping out possible routes in order to transport food from farm lands to villages and cities. It is important to note the order of priority of these roads to be mapped because the zilla roads and unclassfied roads are prone to flooding.

By mapping water bodies, buildings and roads, this project is providing a step in the right direction in order to ensure resiliency to the Khulna District. By mapping these features, the people of Khulna can determine exactly where to access water and how to travel around the region efficiently.

Reference:

  • Resilience: A Critical Framework for Development. Runde, Savoy. Center for Strategic and International Studies (2014)

  • Tracing Guide to Food Security in Khulna, Bangladesh (http://hotosm.github.io/tracing-guides/guide/kulna.html)

John Wells