Women Empowerment and Food Security in India
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Women Empowerment and Food Security in India
By: Punyarupa Bhadury
Posted: Apr 27, 2011
Food security is a part of the broader concept of nutrition security. A household can be said to be nutritionally secure if it is able to ensure a healthy life for all its members at all times. Nutritional security thus requires that household members have access not only to food, but also to other requirements for a healthy life, such as health care, a hygienic environment and knowledge of personal hygiene. Food security is a necessary but insufficient condition for ensuring nutritional security, thus in addition to providing just food to fill hungry stomachs, nutritious food should be emphasised upon.
Food security is a multifaceted concept that goes far beyond the number of people that can be sustained by the earth’s limited food resources to encompass a broad range of issues such as population growth, control and mobility, resource distribution, consumption patterns, agricultural production, climate change, environmental degradation, socio-economic status, development, trade relations, land ownership rights, access to microfinance and access to healthcare services. All of these issues are central to women, yet their role in food security has not attracted attention of many policy-makers.
The need for gender equity cuts across all aspects of sustainable development. A central theme to improving gender equity is the need to inspire and build a culture of partnerships not only between men and women but also between civil society and institutions, and between local and global levels of policy making for sustainable development. Greater gender equity requires economic well-beingand social equity, which means that women are able to express their potential to the benefit of the entire household and community:
Economic well-beingrequires gender-sensitive strategies. 70 percent of the world’s estimated 1.3 billion people living in absolute poverty are women. Economic well being of any society cannot be achieved if one group is massively underprivileged compared to the other. Nor can an economy be called healthy without utilising the contributions and skills of all members of society.
Social equityis fundamentally linked togender equity. No society can survive sustainably, or allow its members to live in dignity, if there is prejudice and discrimination of any social group.
Food insecurity in a household can be seen as a combination of two distinct problems – those of acquirement and utilisation. A household that has the capacity to acquireall the food it needs may not always have the ability to utilisethat capacity to the fullest. For instance, the housewife may be pressed for time to prepare and serve food in a manner that yields the best nutritional value, or perhaps the household’s storage facilities are insufficient for maintaining adequate quantities of food in good condition outside the harvest season. A household can be said to be food secured only if it is secure in terms of both the acquirement and utilisation of food.
Women’s Contribution to Food Security
Gender equality is the key to food security. Empowering women is the key to ensuring food and nutritional security in the developing world. There is a lack of gender-specific information due to weak dissemination and lack of real awareness of the target audience i.e. role of man and women in achieving food security, human development and contribution of women. One reason for women’s work remaining largely invisible in statistics is that a great deal of it takes place outside the formal economy which is frequently considered to be a residual category that does not contribute significant output to the national economy. Recognition and adequate compensation of women’s productive as well as their reproductive labour is essential to maintain their contribution to global food production and security.
The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) disaggregates food security into three pillars – food production, food access and food utilisation.
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Food production
Women are active food producers. They work on small farms and in urban gardens to produce cash crops.
Women work in other aspects of food production such as resource management.\
Food access
Women ensure that each family member receives an adequate share of food.
Women are primarily responsible for purchasing food, to which they devote their time and their income.
Food utilization
Women are responsible for nutrition in the majority of homes. They decide what food to buy and how to prepare it. In many cases, food preparation involves a substantial amount of time for collecting fuel and preparing ingredients.
Legal or social restrictions prevent many women from owning or inheriting land, water rights or livestock, borrowing money or making decisions regarding the use of family assets. This has a direct and detrimental impact on their ability to manage food production and security. In comparative studies, households in which women controlled income, demonstrated better levels of nutrition. Women tend to devote a greater share of their income to food and fuel as opposed to luxury items.
Women and girls assume responsibility for the care of sick family members, which not only exposes them of contracting the illness themselves but also limits the time available for food production and preparation. At current levels, the world produces enough to feed all of its inhabitants. However, unequal distribution means that a few consume too much, while many are not getting enough. Women were the most involved in finding ways to deal with food insecurity. These included:
reducing food intake of themselves and their daughters;
sharing food surplus between households;
using food that expanded in the stomach (e.g., gruel), especially for themselves and their daughters;
cooking food only once a day and using side dishes in order to reduce the fuel used and time spent (freeing time for earning);
consuming processed foods that has been kept in special storage (dried vegetables, flour of mango kernel);
purchasing cheaper staples to replace costlier and more nutritious items; and
working harder and longer on productive activities to earn cash for buying food for their family ignoring the importance of nutritious food for themselves.
Keeping Food security in the hands of women: Indian context
Nutritional status is one of the indicators of the overall well being of population and human resource development. There have been significant improvements in the overall nutritional and health status of the population in India over the last two decades with a steady reduction in the percentage of underweight and severely malnourished women and children, better early childhood care for survival, growth and development and better nutritional status of pregnant and lactating women. However, sub-clinical malnutrition, incidence of low weight-for-age, anaemia, disability and hunger still continue among women in the lower socio-economic sections of the population. This prevents them from reaching their full potential as vibrant and productive human beings. Among the upper socio-economic groups, new problems of malnutrition such as obesity are manifesting themselves, which arise out of increased consumption of processed and refined foods, combined with sedentary lifestyles.
Though over 95 percent of Indians get two square meals a day, but the fact is that they are terribly undernourished. In poor households women and girls are more likely to suffer from malnutrition. The feminisation of poverty means that increasing numbers of women are suffering from malnutrition. This is especially true for pregnant and lactating women, whose food intake may not increase when their requirements do. At least 1.3 billion people are living in absolute poverty and 70 percent of them are women. Women are more threatened by poverty than men partly because more households are headed by women without a partner.
The principle of gender equality is enshrined in the Indian Constitution in its Preamble, Fundamental Rights, Fundamental Duties and Directive Principles. The Constitution not only grants equality to women, but also empowers the State to adopt measures of positive discrimination in favour of women. Thus achievement of food security has been a major goal of the development since India gained independence. Despite tremendous increase in agricultural production, reaching self-sufficiency in food, formation of Food Corporation of India (FCI) with the aim of providing food security and nutrition at the household level the purpose of achieving nutritional security among women and children still remains unsolved. Based on the most recent estimates, about 204.4 million people are suffering from malnutrition in India out of approximately 800 million people in the developing world. So, in order to endeavor towards the eradication of malnutrition, the UN Inter-Agency Working Group (IAWG) on Food Security and Nutrition (FS&N) was established in 1995. In May 2000, the name of the IAWG was changed to “Inter Agency Working Group on Rural Development and Food Security & Nutrition”.
Women are often more vulnerable to nutritional problems because of their lower socio-economic status, as well as their physiological needs. Gender equality and food security can contribute significantly to the efforts to improve the nutrition and health status of women, men and children. Improving women’s knowledge of nutrition and food safety can prevent illnesses, disabilities and premature deaths. Further, women who enjoy good health are better able to contribute to economic development.
Women are active at every point in the food chain and are often responsible for protecting the integrity of food and ensuring its wholesomeness and safety. They participate fully in the design, formulation and implementation of activities to improve the production and consumption of a variety of food. They are often trained for proper handling and processing of food. There is a need to strengthen women who can be an active partner for the economic and social betterment of their family and society as a whole and this is not possible without proper health conditions. It will also help them to build up their capacity for effectively handling and protecting food. Sensitising society and also generating awareness not only among the public or the women but also among government officials is of great importance today.
Punyarupa Bhadury – About the Author:
Punyarupa Bhadury is a Lecturer in the Department of Sociology, Women’s College, Calcutta.
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Article Tags:
food security nutrition security gender equity economic well being social equity acquirement utilisation food production food
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