Livelihood Adaptation of Disadvantaged People of Bangladesh to Economic Volatility and Other Shocks

Given the country's high incidence of poverty, dense population, volatile food grain prices and its vulnerability to natural disasters, including periodic flooding, droughts and cyclones, ensuring food security has become a challenging task for Bangladesh. The volatile prices of food stuffs, especially when prices of rice and wheat went up, created extreme hardship for many households, more particularly disadvantaged people. This situation is more severe for the ultra-poor households, whose food vulnerability increases due to their greater dependency on wage labour or low-income activities. We have a little knowledge about their coping strategies during the period of price hike and other shocks. The policy interventions at the country level would require informed responses to household food security questions.