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The main remarks of the participants are as follows. ・It should be more emphasized that Japanese diet is good not only for health but also for environment. ・To promote Shokuiku(food and nutrition education), more data and evidences showing that Japanese cuisine is excellent in environmental aspect should be collected.

In this dialogue, we discussed challenges and opportunities related to all Action Tracks.

From the dialogue, it was identified that the post-harvest loss in horticultural product is one of the major challenges in the food system of Bangladesh. Agro-processing have a lot of potential in the country. However, small and medium industries cannot compete with large players with a lot of marketing budget. Besides, market instability and lack of efficient market management also pose challenges for food supply chain. Moreover, inclusion and investment of the private sector is also another key challenge to address in coming years. This has also been highlighted in the Food and Nutrition Sec... Read moreurity Policy 2020.The vulnerabilities related to adverse climatic shocks and economic shocks were discussed in the group discussion. In addition to the supporting program, vocational training focusing on high-value crop production should be organized for the farmers in disadvantaged areas. Social safety net programs targeting children, adolescents, and lactating mothers should be strengthened both in the rural, peri-urban, and urban areas.Some areas of divergence discussed in the dialogue includes the following: low reduction rate of stunting, lack of awareness on proper nutrition and inadequacy of funding in nutrition specific interventions. It is also important to strengthen implementation of the acts specially Food Safety Act/BMS Act, and give emphasis on the research on pure nutrition. It is also important to provide more incentives for the food producers/suppliers. The linkages with the nutrition outcomes with the food system have to be developed as a plan on action in all the relevant Ministries, since food system is inherently complex and more than 22 Ministries implement nutrition sensitive interventions. Read less

• Availability of diversified, safe and nutritious Food: Outcomes- Diversified, safe and nutritious food needs to be made available for vulnerable people through the proper nutrition sensitive food system. It is essential for nutrition and food safety to be incorporated in the interventions related to agricultural production including fisheries and livestock.- It is essential to establish adequate number of cold storage/warehouses for proper storage of perishable food items. It is also important to ensure diversified use of agricultural commodities which can be enabled by establishi... Read moreng location specific agro-processing industries. e.g., mango juice plant in Rajshahi and Chapainawabganj and pineapple processing plant in Modhupur and Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT).- It is vital to improve the transportation and logistical systems for agricultural product to minimise spoilage during transportation.- Expansion of the production of captured fish need to be ensured to get nutritious fish as the culture fish production is increasing rapidly which does not contain adequate micronutrient while captured fish are tastier and more natural.- Establishment of sanctuary for captured fish particularly in haor, baor areas is essential. During dry season some portion of haor, baor can be dug out for preserving and protecting mother fishes, which could increase production of captured fish.- Excess vegetables produced in haor (wetlands) and char (islands) areas can be processed and dried by using solar dryer which can be made available for the consumption of haor and char dwellers. Location specific awareness creation activities must be undertaken in these areas on consumption of dried vegetables.• Transformation, delivery, access and role of private sector- It is important to establish an enable environment so that the farmers can sell their product directly to the market. Steps should be taken to allow farmers to get fairs price for their produces in the market.- Awareness building campaign for consumer should be undertaken to choose nutritious and safe food options.- In order to check food adulteration, monitoring process should be more vigilant and capacity of agencies charged with monitoring and vigilance needs to be strengthened further.- Modern food storage and processing institutions should be established, for which co-operation and a responsible attitude in enhancing food systems from private sector actors and business associations are central.• Vulnerability and inclusion (youth, gender, hard to reach areas, disability, social safety net)- Urgent action is required for vocational training and support programs for small-scale farmers to produce high-value nutritious crops, fruits, and vegetables with a special focus on the haor, baor, hills, and hard-to-reach areas. For these actions, the Ministry of Agriculture should take necessary actions and the progress could be measured by the production volume of high-value crops in those specific areas. The possible challenges include farmers’ adoption of high-value crops and marketing facilities.- A well-targeted, nutrition-sensitive, and equitable social safety net program especially for the vulnerable groups including the women and adolescents need to be run. Reducing the mistargeting of social safety net programs and increasing the food-based support program were the proposed suggestions in the participants’ discussion. An evaluation of the existing social safety nets programmes needs to be conducted. Government of Bangladesh has formulated the National Social Security Read less

Bangladesh has achieved the status of self-sufficiency in terms of food production. It is the high time that Bangladesh should go for food quality rather than quantity and move towards healthier nutritious food production and consumption. For this reason, it is important to focus on food system approach to ensure food and nutrition security and to achieve all 17 SDGs. Like most of the countries in the world, existing food system of Bangladesh is based on quantity, so it is essential to convert the quantity based food system to quality based food system. Food supply chain including production t... Read moreo consumption and all steps need to be considered and other components of food systems like food environment (including food availability, food accessibility, food quality), consumer behaviour and diet should be prioritized for better food system.The role of multisectoral and multi-stakeholders in national development is significant to ensure nutrition sensitive food system. Having effective coordination with private sectors including all players of food supply chain and involving civil society, scientists and academia are likely to bring more innovations to the existing system and add value to the important task of achieving food and nutrition security. Thus, creating an enabling platform for multi-stakeholder engagement is required to strengthen national food system and ensure safe and nutrition food. Read less

The major focus of the dialogue is to improve food and nutrition security through food system approach. In the discussion of the dialogue, Action Track-1 i.e. ‘Ensure access to safe and nutritious food for all’ was considered initially. However, connections with the other Action Tracks were also considered for the improvement of food and nutrition security situation in Bangladesh. In the group discussion session of the dialogue, the following six thematic areas (discussion topics) were considered: i) Availability of diversified, safe and nutritious Food; ii) Transformation, delivery, acces... Read mores and role of private sector; iii) Vulnerability and inclusion (youth, gender, hard to reach areas, disability, social safety net); iv) Consumer behaviour; v) Nutrition and food safety (rules, regulations, compliance); vi) Governance and coordination.For ensuring access to safe and nutritious food for all, it is important to include all vulnerable population in the social protection programme. Government of Bangladesh has given emphasis to support people affected by the flood, drought, natural disaster, other adverse climatic events. In addition, it is also important to support people residing in the marginalized and geographically hard-to-reach areas, and families which are economically and socially vulnerable to food and nutrition security. Communities afflicted by food insecurity for a long period of time are very prone to suffer from depletion of their productive assets and health, disruption of education of children and youth, and diminished future productive capacity and income. A well-targeted nutrition sensitive social safety net program is needed to prevent food and nutrition insecurity along with re-building their productive assets. A well-designed target program can benefit the disadvantaged and vulnerable groups especially children, adolescents, lactating mothers, aged, disabled, minorities, those living in remote marginalized areas, urban slums, and displaced migrants. Besides, special training programs and agricultural sector rehabilitation and mitigation measures could benefit these vulnerable and excluded people. Read less