How an energy transition can secure our food production
The economic shift and modernisation in Bangladesh have brought about a demographic transition and impacted the country's energy sector, agriculture and labour market. Due to a steady urban migration trend, the rural population growth declined since 2015, and the share of rural population has fallen from 76 percent in 2000 to 60 percent of the total population in 2022 (World Bank, 2024). Fertility has dropped remarkably with the current annual population growth rate being 1.1 percent. Besides, a study published in The Lancet indicates that the country's population will reach half the current level by the end of the century (Vollset et al, 2020).
At the same time, sustained economic growth is projected to boost energy consumption. According to the Centre for Economics and Business Research, Bangladesh will become the 20th biggest economy in the world by 2037, leading to an increase in energy demand from higher industrial productivity and consumer spending. The shifts in demographic structure and projected economic growth have important implications for energy consumption, food production and land use that must be considered holistically.
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The first implication is the decline in the rural labour force, particularly in the agriculture sector. The share of the labour force of the country employed in the agriculture sector has fallen from 61 percent in 2000 to 37 percent in 2022 (World Bank, 2024). While the share of the population employed in agriculture is still quite high compared to the falling contribution of this sector to the GDP (Byron, 2023), the remedy to this low-value addition is to increase mechanisation in agriculture to increase the productivity per worker, along with their earnings potential. Indeed, the mechanisation and energy intensity of the agriculture sector has been going on over several decades, spurred by both market forces and supportive government policy. The government has been subsidising diesel and agricultural machinery and allowing tax-free imports of the machinery. With rising prices of scarce agricultural labour, farmers turn to machinery, particularly during the short and busy harvesting season. The mechanisation of agriculture also increases food security by reducing crop spoilage, as it allows emergency rapid harvesting of crops before the onset of floods or other adverse climate events, especially in the Haor areas of Sylhet. The scope of mechanisation encompasses tillage, weeding, seeding, spraying, rice transplanting, harvesting, threshing, winnowing, and of course irrigation, all of which depended on diesel-fuelled machinery. This market is constantly increasing, and along with it the demand for fuel and electricity. The agriculture sector has emerged as the second biggest consumer of petroleum, after the transport sector.
The growing energy intensity of an increasingly mechanised agriculture sector brings together food and energy in a delicate nexus. The threat to food security from interruptions to global supply chains was identified during Covid, and this caused the government to increase subsidies for agricultural machinery (Bhuyan, 2020). Moreover, following the onset of the Ukraine war, the prices of petroleum products in the global market have increased, leading to rising prices of natural gas-based fertilisers and increasing the cost of food production (Baffes and Koh, 2022). The global energy supply disruptions revealed how threats to energy security can affect food production from two angles, firstly by increasing the cost of energy-intensive mechanised processes in agriculture, and secondly by increasing the cost of fertilisers that are necessary to increase crop yield. Around six percent of the total gas consumed in Bangladesh is by the fertiliser industry, as per a 2023 report by the power, energy and mineral resources ministry.
Given the close food-energy nexus, food security now hinges on self-sufficiency in energy supply. Diversifying the energy mix of Bangladesh by making it less dependent on imported fuels can promote food security. This is where renewable energy can play a crucial role. Renewable energy could contribute to securing the food-energy nexus and reduce economic risks in several ways. Renewable power plants—after the initial one-off capital investment in plant machinery and equipment—can generate electricity using natural energy sources like solar or wind energy without requiring the input of costly fuels. More renewable power also means scarce gas resources can instead be used for the fertiliser industry.
Bangladesh has significant potential for solar and wind energy, and these can promote energy security and also contribute to food security. Renewable energy resources like solar power require land use, and Bangladesh has restrictions regarding the use of agricultural land for other purposes. However, energy-intensive mechanised agriculture can actually increase crop productivity even in limited agricultural land. Research has demonstrated that energy poverty can hamper agricultural productivity, directly by reducing mechanisation, and indirectly by diverting the rural workforce to other sectors which enjoy more energy input (Shi et al, 2022).
Energy and food production are not competing but rather complementary objectives. With proper and careful planning, energy transition combined with food security considerations can help both climate change mitigation and national adaptation. It is therefore imperative to have a clear strategic direction for the food-energy nexus to harness their synergy for the sustainable socio-economic development of the country.
Shahriar Ahmed Chowdhury is the director of Centre for Energy Research at United International University.
Views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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