Is there a difference between the poor and non-poor? A disaggregated demand analysis for fish in Bangladesh

Abstract

This study examines the fish consumption pattern of households in Bangladesh. We use data of the national Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) to develop a demand model disaggregated by fish types and income groups. We apply a two-step censored regression model to estimate the price and income elasticities. Results show that poor and non-poor households consume similar types of fish. However, poor households rely more on fish as their primary source of animal protein. As income increases, the fish consumption of the poor rises more than for the non-poor. Additionally, fish price increase will lead to a deterioration of their nutritional conditions. In terms of fish species, the study finds that carps, pangasius, barbs and tilapia, mainly sourced from aquaculture, and small catfish, mainly sourced from capture fisheries, are the most frequently consumed fish species for the households in Bangladesh. The paper also finds that aquaculture has good potential to compensate for the decline of fish supply from inland capture fisheries.

Keywords:

• AIDS model
• Bangladesh
• demand elasticity
• nutrition
• poverty
• seemingly unrelated regressions

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Acknowledgements

Authors would like to specially thank Dr. Priyanka Parvathi (Post Doc Fellow) from Institute of Development and Agricultural Economics, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Hannover, Germany for her constructive comments on an earlier draft and Dr. Mohammad Yunus (Senior Research Fellow) from Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), Dhaka, Bangladesh for his suggestion on elasticity estimates in the methodology part.

Notes

1 Accessed from https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2017/10/24/bangladesh-continues-to-reduce-poverty-but-at-slower-pace.

2 Divisions are administrative regions in Bangladesh. Each division has the local government with certain fiscal and administrative powers over districts and sub-districts (i.e., union, municipalities, and city corporations) within its jurisdiction.

3 The PSUs are defined as contiguous two or more enumeration areas with 110 households on average in each PSU from the framework of Population and Housing Census 2011. The population and housing census divides the country into a total of 6720 PSUs.

4 This method estimates a food poverty line at the cost of a fixed bundle of goods providing minimal nutrition requirements corresponding to 2122 kcal/day/person. This bundle consists of eleven food items: rice, wheat, pulses, milk, oil, meat, fresh water fish, potato, other vegetables, sugar, and fruits as recommended by Ravallion and Sen (1996). Then an ‘allowance’ for non-food consumption is estimated. The food and non-food allowances are added together to calculate the poverty line.

5 Hilsa is most highly prized, culturally significant, and expensive fish in Bangladesh (Toufique, 2015). It is a marine fish but it migrates to inland for spawning for which no farmed substitute exists.

6 According to the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), GI is a sign used on products that have a specific geographical origin and possess qualities or a reputation that are due to that origin. With this recognition, on 6 August 2017 Directorate of Patent, Design and Trademark (DPDT) under the Ministry of Industries, Bangladesh has declared the recognition of hilsa the second GI product of Bangladesh. Therefore, the countries that import hilsa will register this fish as the product of Bangladesh.

Additional information

Funding

The authors would like to thank the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Germany, for providing the financial support for this study under the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) project from 2014 to 2017.