8 According to the Global Food Security Index, 2012, Bangladesh is the least food-secure among the South Asian countries. Globally, Bangladesh ranked 81st in terms of food security amongst 105 countries. Level of calorie intake is one of methods to measure poverty. At least 31% of the population of Bangladesh is still calorie deficient and 40% of children are too short for their age due to inadequate calorie intake.12 While the food availability has increased in recent years, lack of access is largely responsible for over 60 million people going hungry every day. Natural disaster, lack of education and lack of awareness also contributes to food insecurity in Bangladesh. Although rice productions are largely sufficient in Bangladesh, self-sufficiency in other food items is still to be achieved. Continuing population growth, shrinking of arable land every year due to demand from housing and industries, submersion of land, salinity of water due to climate change, declining soil fertility due to overexploitation of soil and imbalanced use of fertilizers are main threats to achieving food security in Bangladesh. 5. Basic Need Approach to Food The basic need approach identifies a bundle of basic minimum requirements of human life including such as food, shelter, clothing, clean water, and so on.13 Although it aims to provide conditions for comprehensive fulfillment of human life (material, social, cultural and political), in operational terms it primarily focuses on the minimum requirements for a decent life – health, nutrition and literacy – and the goods and services needed to realize it.14 Basic need approach to food is mainly concerned with ensuring food security for people. A need-based approach puts emphasis on charity for solving food insecurity. The needs-based approach assumes that people who lack access to food are passive recipients in need of direct assistance. Programs and policy efforts that use this approach tend to provide assistance without expectation of action from the recipient, without obligation and without legal protections.15 A needs-based approach does not 12 National Demographic and Health Survey (DHS), 2011. Poverty Perspectives: ‘Basic Needs Approach’ vs‘ Capabilities Approach, available at http://hubpages.com/hub/Understanding-Poverty-Comparing-Basic-Needs-and-Capabilities-Approaches 14 Ibid. 15 Marian Chilton, ‘A Rights-Based Approach to Food Insecurity in the United States’, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2696644/ 13