The link between climate change, food security and fertility: The case of Bangladesh

Saharan African (SSA) countries that long-term (60-month) increases in rainfall are associated with an increase in women’s preference for fertility [65]. While our results confirm that GDP per capita is largely responsible for fertility decline in both the short and long run, we show that certain climate change parameters (e.g., maximum temperature and precipitation) and crop production are also non-negligible factors for fertility transition in the country. Although GDP per capita is responsible for fertility decline in both the short and long term, we show that climate change and crop production are also non-negli- gible factors for fertility transition in the country. This study can serve as an example and focus further research on regions or countries that are in a similar context to Bangladesh, whose economies are mainly based on agriculture and are highly vulnerable to climate change. Climate change is likely to worsen a country’s economic development and may affect fertility rates directly or indirectly, in the short or long term. Since GDP per capita is one of the deter- mining factors for the decline in fertility rate in Bangladesh, the adverse effects of climate change may affect the rate of this decline by reducing GDP growth. The study findings advance our understanding of the impacts of climate change parameters with an indirect impact through food production on the fertility rate in Bangladesh. This study suggests further research incorporating multiple climate change parameters and crop types with a particular

focus on spatial variations across the districts of Bangladesh. Further research could separate the effects of different crops in the analysis. Since crop production (for example, rice and wheat) is susceptible to temperature in Bangla- desh, variety-specific adaptation strategies could help mitigate the adverse effects of climate change and thereby reduce the risk of food insecurity. In Bangladesh, several salt-tolerant high-yielding rice varieties have been successfully released to coastal areas in recent years, which could ensure food security for vulnerable coastal populations [88]. Other areas vulnerable to various extreme weather events such as floods, droughts, extreme temperature events etc., need immediate atten- tion. Policymakers should build the adaptive capacity of populations vulnerable to climate change by increasing the storage of crops needed for times of crisis and providing financial support to help recover from the impacts of climate-related events and loss of agricultural production. There are some limitations to this study. First, TFR is used as a measure of fertility, which refers to the average number of children per woman in a given year. It is not possible to distin- guish whether the change in the TFR is due to the change in the number of children desired by women or to the change in the state of health of the women who give birth or in fertility. Sec- ond, the current analysis is nationwide. Having no access to provincial and county-level data, we are unable to reveal whether the relationship between fertility and climate factors varies

from one region to another. Third, this study only considered infant mortality, agricultural production and climate factors in the analysis. We are aware that there are many other agricul- tural inputs (e.g. agricultural technology, irrigated land, etc.) and various fertility factors (e.g. education, labour force participation, etc.); however, due to data limitation, we cannot incor- porate these factors into the analysis. Supporting information S1 Data. (XLSX) Author Contributions Conceptualization: Shah Md Atiqul Haq, Khandaker Jafor Ahmed, A. H. M. Belayeth Hus- sain, Mufti Nadimul Quamar Ahmed. PLOS ONE Climate change, food security and fertility PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258196 October 21, 2021 13 / 18