Speakers and health experts at a webinar have said that adequate consumption of vegetables and fruits every year would save the lives of 2.7 million people. Although Bangladesh is one of the world’s leading producers of vegetables and fruits, the population is consuming less fresh fruits and vegetables than they need, they added.
ARK Foundation, Center for Law and Policy Affairs (CLPA), Dhaka International University and Mayor's Alliance for Healthy City jointly organised the webinar on ‘Steps for Supportive Policy to Ensure Healthy Food in City’ on Saturday evening (January 30).
The health experts said that there is a close relationship of consumption with price and availability of fresh fruits and vegetables. Therefore it is important to formulate urban agricultural policy to ensure supply of fresh fruits and vegetables in the city.
The speakers also said that non-communicable diseases are one of the leading causes of preventable death in the world. In Bangladesh too, it has taken a terrible turn. At present, 67 percent of deaths in the country are due to non-communicable diseases. In order to implement the SDG target, Bangladesh will have to reduce non-communicable disease deaths to 30 percent by 2030, they mentioned.
In the webinar, they also said that unhealthy food needs to be controlled to encourage people to eat healthy food. Because these two cannot be done in parallel. However, subsidies and tax cuts are an effective way to produce healthy food. It is not possible to bring benefits to the people without formulating, amending and refining the laws and supporting policies of healthy food supply chain.
Professor of Economics Department at Dhaka University and Chief Executive of ARK Foundation Dr Rumana Haque presided over the webinar while MP from Gaibandha-1 constituency Barrister Shameem Haider Patwari, Mayor of Rangpur City Corporation Mostafizur Rahman Mostafa, Mayor of Manikganj Municipality Gazi Kamrul Huda Selim, Mayor of Dhamrai Municipality Alhaj Golam Kabir, Mayor of Sundarganj Municipality Abdur Rashid Dablu spoke there, among others.
CLPA Secretary Syed Mahbubul Alam presented the keynote paper at the webinar.
Representatives from Bangladesh Network for Tobacco Tax Policy (BNTTP), AID, Pratashya Madhok Birodhi Sangathan, DAS, Grambangla Development Committee, Work for a Better Bangladesh (WBB) Trust and Bangladesh Anti-Tobacco Alliance (BATA) took part in the webinar.
