MODERN FOOD STORAGE FACILITIES PROJECT




                                                                                                                      ENSURING
                                                                                                                 FOOD SECURITY
                                                                                                                AFTER NATURAL
                                                                                                                    DISASTERS

                                                 APPROVAL DATE:           END DATE:         TOTAL COMMITMENT:    IMPLEMENTING AGENCIES:
       BASIC
       INFORMATION
                                                 December 30              June 30           $210 million         DG FOOD OF MINISTRY OF FOOD
                                                 2013                     2020

    OVERVIEW
    Due to its geographical position, Bangladesh remains vulnerable to climate change and natural disasters,
    which often cause damage to the country’s infrastructure and agricultural sectors. The poor are most
    vulnerable to natural disasters and face difficulty in ensuring steady food supply in the aftermath of
    natural disasters. Ensuring food and nutrition security for the vast number of poor and vulnerable,
    particularly women and children in rural areas remains a challenge. As nearly 70 percent of
    Bangladesh’s population lives in rural areas, climate shocks and stresses have particularly
    negative implications on their food, livelihood security, and welfare.




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CHALLENGE                                                                                                                    TOWARDS THE FUTURE
The Public Food Distribution System is a core element of the Government of Bangladesh’s food security                        With strengthened capacity for improving stock
strategy. Public food distribution and strategic grain reserves currently rely on 670 central and local storage              management in the modern silos, and comprehensive
depots (“godowns”) with a total effective capacity of about 1.6 million tons. Most of these godowns are                      analyses for enhancing the overall policy framework on
old and poorly maintained, leading to physical losses in grain stored (about 17- 20 percent in value terms)                  strategic grain reserves, GoB will be in a position to make
and in its nutritional value. In the next five to seven years, the physical condition of many conventional                   sound and informed decisions as it reconciles the three
godowns will deteriorate, leading a 35 to 40 percent decline in its effective storage capacity by 2020. The                  strategic objectives that impact the domestic food market:
2007/08 world food price shock and temporary disruption of rice imports from India led to lesser reliance                    (i) supporting the poor and vulnerable through effective
on international markets and more focus on increased public cereal stocks, domestic procurement and                          Social Safety Net programs; (ii) improving the country’s
public distribution and planed investments in expanded grain storage and drying facilities to store rice for                 disaster preparedness to meet food security needs caused
longer periods without major quality deterioration. This confirms the needs for scaling-up construction of                   by disaster-induced food shortages; and (iii) devising non-
silos within the country. If these silos would have been operationalized, the vulnerabilities of the availability            distortive market interventions for food price stabilization,
of food grain during 2017 floods in Bangladesh would have been substantially reduced.                                        mainly for coarse grain consumed by the poor and
                                                                                                                             vulnerable.


APPROACH
The Modern Food Storage Facilities Project aims to increase the grain reserve available to households to
meet their post-disaster needs and improve the efficiency of grain storage management.

The project is helping construct eight public modern grain storage steel silos in eight strategic locations
comprising six for rice and two for wheat and also support the distribution of 500,000 smaller household
silos to poorest and marginal farmers, and women-headed vulnerable households. The project will
improve efficiency of grain storage management and delivery in GoB’s (food-based) social safety net
programs and ensure long-term preservation of grain quality without the use of any chemical, pesticides
and preservatives. It also supports development of Food Planning and Monitoring Program (FPMP)
to modernize the monitoring and management system of food storage as well as to develop and
implement a food policy research agenda covering grain storage and distribution.




                      EXPECTED RESULTS

                          8 steel silos to be constructed with a storage                           50% Reduction in grain storage and handling
                          capacity for 535,500 tons of rice and wheat                              losses in public storage facilities

                                                                                                                                             THE WORLD BANK IN BANGLADESH                |   7