Abstract
Soil nutrients move from soil to elsewhere through several processes. The present study is based on secondary data sources to estimate how much soil nutrient was transported from rural to urban areas through food consumption of urban people in Bangladesh. Nine soil nutrients such as N, P, K, Ca, Mg, Fe, Cu, Zn and Na and about 15 food items were considered to estimate how much soil nutrient was transported through consumption. Rural areas are the major sources of foods transported from local land to cities to meet growing food demands of urban dwellers. Annually around total 332883 t nutrients were moved from rural to urban areas through food of urban people. The consumption of macronutrients was more than those of micronutrients. The movement of N (224135 t yr-1) was nearly twice to other nutrients, among them crops contributed to remove 141444 t N. Among other macronutrient, the maximum amount of N (79192 t) was moved through rice. Fish removed 45193 t N which was 8000 t more compared to livestock. Around 24712, 50766, 17807, 9118 t P, K, Ca and Mg removed annually by food respectively. The movement of micronutrient was 402, 58, 238 and 5644 t from Fe, Cu, Zn and Na respectively. This continuous nutrient movement process is causing rural soil nutrients loss and needs attention from policy makers and scientists.
Keywords : Food consumption, nutrient movement, rural agriculture, soil nutrients, urban people