Rice prices continue to be the major contributor to food inflation as well as overall price hikes of essentials that lead majority people to struggle for food security amid spreading hidden hunger.
The fine rice inflation has remained double-digit in the past twelve months while the medium and coarse varieties have hit double-digit inflation since December 2024, according to a government report released on Sunday.
The overall situation is worrying for the interim government that assumed office following the ouster of the Awami League regime in the wake of a mass uprising with the expectation that the rice price hikes would ease from June because of the harvest of the boro paddy.
But the harvest of boro rice, the single biggest crop accounting for about 50 per cent of the country鈥檚 annual grain output, did not fulfill the expectation.
The contribution of increasing rice price to food inflation jumped to 51.55 per cent in July from 40 per cent in May, said the macroeconomic update of the General Economics Division under the ministry of planning.
The medium coarse rice price has contributed 24 per cent and the coarse rice 18.39 per cent to food inflation in July, according to GED data.
Dr Abu Torab M A Rahim, a professor at the Institute of Nutrition and Food Science under the University of Dhaka, said that the double-digit inflation of rice exposed hidden hunger.
With the country鈥檚 purchasing disparity, a widening majority of the people in impoverished Bangladesh cannot afford to buy adequate rice that contributes approximately 67.5 per cent of the average per capita calorie intake.聽
鈥楾he purchasing capacity of a rich household in the city鈥檚 wealthy Gulshan area and a poor household at a nearby slum is not the same,鈥� said M A Rahim, assuming negative impacts on the nutrition of a vast number of poor people and hence its consequence on the population鈥檚 health and economy.
An earlier survey in March 2023 by the South Asian Network on Economic Modelling, when the food inflation was 9.09 per cent, said that food price hikes were significantly impacting people鈥檚 food consumption, with many households cutting their food intake, skipping meals, and switching to cheaper, lower-quality food.
Rising prices of essential commodities have forced a substantial portion of the population to cut back on food, health, and other basic necessities, said SANEM executive director Selim Raihan.聽
The GED report recommended that the government should accelerate the import of food grains and step up the procurement process to scale up food grain distribution through the 鈥極pen Market Sale鈥� system in the short term.
Highlighting the losses in rice crop in flash floods and lack of affordability of the majority people, the General Economics Division said that the OMS distribution of rice in July 2025 amounted to 62,889 tonnes, 36 per cent lower compared to the same month the previous year.
According to Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics estimates, the production of both aus and aman paddies dropped 0.85 per cent and 6.04 percent respectively in the 2024-25 financial year.
The major cause of the fall in yield was primarily due to frequent floods and unfavorable weather, said BBS.
Praising the government efforts to check the overall double-digit inflation it inherited from the ousted AL regime, the GED report said that July was the second consecutive month since February 2023 that headline inflation registered under 9 per cent and food inflation under 8 per cent.聽聽
The next step should be to continuously monitor and manage the domestic market situation, and provide necessary agricultural input at the appropriate time, added the GED report.
