insightsresearch findings for development

policymakers and practitioners

food securityJanuary 2012 issue 82

an IDS Knowledge Services publication

Women working on farmland belonging to the Twitezimbere Abakenyezi Association in Mutumba, Burundi. The association was set up by 18 women in 2007 to enablecollaborative agricultural production, mutual support and collective learning. © Dieter Telemans, Panos Pictures

Innovative approaches to genderand food securityChanging attitudes, changing behaviours

The struggle of poor women and men indeveloping countries to ensure sufficientnutritious food for their families has beenregularly reported in the media in Northernand Southern countries over the past fouryears. The global food price spikes haveincreased undernourishment by almost sevenpercent, and have driven at least 100 millionmore people into poverty. By 2050, the worldpopulation will be around 9.3 billion, andfeeding everyone will require a potential 70percent increase in supplies of cereals alone.

Gender justice – that is, the realisation ofwomen’s rights as human rights – andending hunger, are closely entwined,

interdependent goals. Solving hunger nowand in the future involves challenging thecurrent global development model whichpermits – and is driven by – inequality.Gender analysis shows us that womenliterally 'feed the world', as producers,processors, cooks and servers of food.However, women’s vast contribution to food production, and their key role asconsumers and family carers, is still largelymisunderstood and underestimated.

A conservative estimate is that femalefarmers cultivate more than 50 percent of all food grown (UNHRC, 2010). Indeveloping countries, 45 percent ofeconomically active women report that their primary economic activity isagriculture, and in some least developedcountries, this figure rises to 75 percent.Yet, in many parts of the world, women are still unable to own or control land intheir own right, and have less access toresources such as seeds.

Women also have far less access to higher-value markets, and their crops and foodproducts may be sold on their behalf by men – who then keep and control theincome. When a woman farmer or wagedlabourer returns home, she begins a secondshift of work to prepare food for her family.In many cases she eats least and last.

This issue of insights is the result of acollaborative process involving expertsworking in policy, research and practice on gender and food security in four globalregions. At the centre of the process was adynamic online discussion, which raised manyissues and questions around the gender power

Contents

Editorial 1

Women in Agriculture, Closing the Gender Gap for Development (The State of Food and Agriculture 2010-2011) 2

Homestead food production in Bangladesh 3

Challenging cultural values in India 4

Equal access for women to seeds in Syria 5

Family food security planning in Zambia 6

Groups versus households in Bangladesh 7

Food sovereignty in Latin America 8

Useful weblinks 8

Agnes Quisumbing, Senior Research Fellow,IFPRI provided academic advice for this issueof insights. She specialises in poverty, gender,property rights and economic mobility. She iscurrently researching how closing the genderasset gap helps development projects achievetheir objectives.

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It is a bitter irony that our world currentlyproduces enough food to provide forevery woman, man and child, yet a

recent estimate by the Food and AgricultureOrganization of the United Nations (FAO)suggests that around 925 million people goto bed hungry each night.

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T he State of Food and Agriculture 2010-2011, published by the Food andAgriculture Organization of the United

Nations, focuses on women and their vital –but often underestimated – roles within ruraleconomies. Important messages include:

• Women make essential contributions toagriculture but their roles differ significantlyby region and are changing rapidly insome areas.

• Women have one thing in common acrossregions: they have less access than men toproductive resources and opportunities.There is a gender gap for many assets,inputs and services such as land, livestock,labour, education, extension, financialservices and technology. This imposescosts on the agriculture sector, the broadereconomy and society, as well as on thewomen themselves.

• Closing this gender gap would generatesignificant gains for the agriculture sectorand for society. If women had equal accessto productive resources, yields on theirfarms would increase by 20 to 30 percent.This could raise total agricultural output indeveloping countries by 2.5 percent, whichcould reduce the number of hungry peoplein the world by 12 to 17 percent.

• When women control additional income,they spend more of it than men do on food,health, clothing and educating their children.This has clear benefits for household foodsecurity and wellbeing and for longer termeconomic growth through better health,nutrition and education outcomes.

Women inagriculture Closing the gender gap

See alsoThe State of Food and Agriculture 2010-2011: Women in Agriculture, Closing theGender Gap for Development, Food andAgriculture Organization of the United Nationshttp://www.fao.org/docrep/013/i2050e/i2050e.pdf

dynamics of food production, consumptionand governance. Particularly interesting, wasthe extent to which participants identifiedtransformative development pathways thatpromote food security and poverty reductionwhile also enabling shifts in gender powerrelations. Focusing on six projects in SouthAsia, Africa, Latin America and the MiddleEast, the articles in this issue illustrate some of these pathways.

They demonstrate how development cansupport poor households to survive andmove out of poverty by channellingresources to women for producing, selling,processing and cooking food. In meeting the intensely practical needs of women,development interventions can challengeand transform the unequal social, economicand political power relations which create acycle of poverty. There is a synergy betweenthe goals of efficiency and empowermenthere: if women are supported to grow morefood and control the produce and to have astronger voice in the home, where food isdistributed and consumed, this will bebeneficial for families and wider society.

Furthermore, this issue of insights demonstratesthat food security and agricultural extensionprogrammes will be far more effective andempowering if they also challenge andtransform unequal gender power relations. Thismeans tackling the constraints around women’saccess to resources and addressing the issue of unequal gender roles, responsibilities andworkloads that perpetuate poverty for all, while leaving women exhausted and oftenmalnourished. It means changing the attitudesand beliefs of all in society about gender rolesand power relations – including, crucially, menand boys.

Emily Hillenbrand shows how Helen KellerInternational’s Homestead Food Productioninitiative in Bangladesh was a catalyst forchange when it adopted a women’sempowerment perspective. This involvedattitudinal change among projectparticipants and staff, challenging gendernorms of men as the main farmers andwomen primarily as family carers.

Suniti Neogy describes a project in ruralnorth-east India which sets out to break the cycle of malnutrition among girls andwomen by working with men and women to emphasise the importance of nutrition for women. It challenged social norms thatwomen should eat after men (reflecting thegeneral view that women are of secondaryimportance in the family and wider society).Involving men in these discussions helpedbring about changes in attitudes.

In Syria, Alessandra Galié’s research showsthat new technologies, plant-breedingprocesses and policies regulating access toseeds need to be developed with women’sspecific interests and needs in mind. As menmigrate to urban areas looking for work,women are becoming more involved inproducing food and increasingly needaccess to relevant technologies.

A project in Zambia demonstrates theeffectiveness and transformative potential ofinvolving all household members in discussionson food security. Promoting gender equalityamong men and boys in a non-threateningway leads to improved household resilienceand coping strategies, as Cathy RozelFarnworth explains. Once the positive effectson household livelihoods are apparent to men,they are more likely to welcome significantchanges to gender roles and relations.

Agnes Quisumbing and Neha Kumar analyseresearch from the International Food PolicyResearch Institute (IFPRI), which investigated thelong-term impact of programmes that provideagricultural technologies to boost assets andnutritional status of women and men in ruralBangladesh. In contrast to the Zambianproject, this research indicates that in somecontexts, working with women-only groupsmay be more beneficial for reducinginequalities in ownership and controls of assetsthan taking a household-focused approach,where often, only husbands are involved.

Food sovereignty has emerged in LatinAmerica as an alternative way ofunderstanding and responding to foodinsecurity. As Pamela Caro explains, food

sovereignty asserts the need for:• women and men to have equal access to

resources, including land, so that they canbecome as efficient as possible

• equal sharing between men and womenof reproductive work, including preparingand distributing food

• women to play a more significant role indecision-making concerning foodproduction and distribution issues.

This issue of insights shows how developmentpolicy and practice can potentially improvefood security while supporting women’sempowerment. They can focus on women’scritical role as food producers, consumersand family carers, while transforming gendernorms and inequalities within households andcommunities. There is no ‘one size fits all’approach to achieving these outcomes, but itis vital to ensure that food securityinterventions:• are informed by both women and men

at the local level in their design andimplementation

• are tailored to specific contexts, given theoften vast disparities in experience, needs andgender roles within countries and regions

• take into account and respect women’sinstrumental role in food production

• involve women and men equally indecision-making around food production,consumption and distribution.

Caroline SweetmanEditor, Gender and DevelopmentOxfam GBOxfam House, John Smith DriveOxford, OX4 2JY, UKCSweetman@oxfam.org.ukwww.genderanddevelopment.orgwww.oxfam.org.uk

See alsoPreliminary Study of the Human RightsCouncil Advisory Committee onDiscrimination in the Context of the Rightto Food, 13th Session, UN Human RightsCouncil, February 2010www.unhcr.org/refworld/topic,4565c2252f,458ab0852,4bbedc082,0.html

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Transforming gender relations in homestead foodproduction in Bangladesh

Gender inequity is an underlyingcause of food insecurity andmalnutrition in South Asia. In

Bangladesh, women’s mobility is restrictedby social norms of purdah, which limitstheir access to public spaces, information,income and tools for decision-making.Women cannot access markets but dependon husbands or sons to make transactions.Women are also excluded from land andasset ownership and extension advice.

Helen Keller International’s (HKI) homesteadfood production (HFP) model is a woman-centered, agriculture-based approach todietary diversification. HKI establishescommunity-based demonstration farmswhere women receive technical advice,inputs, and nutrition education to producenutrient-rich vegetables, poultry and smalllivestock on homestead plots. The HFPmodel has been recognised as a bestpractice in agriculture throughout SouthAsia and has improved nutrition for morethan five million people in Bangladesh.Because the demonstration farms arenearby and the amount of land required fordietary improvements is small, most womenhave been able to participate despiterestrictions on their mobility and inequalitiesin land ownership. However, gender issueswere not initially discussed as part of theHFP project.

Recently, HKI Bangladesh has started aninternal process of encouraging criticalreflection on gender relations. It began by acknowledging that women in HFPprogrammes are often seen principally as a way to achieve better child nutrition,rather than from a rights or empowermentperspective.

This sparked a series of reflective trainingsand qualitative research exploring gendernorms with staff and project participants. One important insight was that ‘men controlbig things, but women control small things’.Women are often responsible for takingcare of livelihood assets (land, ponds, trees,cows, poultry, nets) but only claim jointownership of the smallest assets, such aspoultry, vegetable plots or cooking pots.Women said that they often feel vulnerableand dependent on their husbands.

Members of staff also recognised that they often deferred to the male head ofhousehold during programme delivery,assuming that decisions made ‘on behalf of the household’ would automaticallybenefit all members equally. Some malestaff members even questioned their ownpractices and resolved to share more

information, resources and decisions withtheir own wives. Staff at all levels offeredideas for transforming unequal genderrelations and building the resource base,agency and achievements of womenparticipants. Examples include:• Group excursions to markets were

organised for women, so that they could select seeds or livestock themselves.

• Women were trained to build and repairpoultry sheds, traditionally a male activity.

• Group marketing programmes enabledgroups of women to bring their produceto an accessible collection point andengage directly with a middleman, sothat they could retain direct control overthe income they generated.

• The land size requirement of 800 squaremetres for demonstration farmers andleaders was relaxed, enabling morewomen to take on these roles.

• Men became more systematicallyengaged in nutrition education,challenging the norm that ‘care’ is an exclusively female domain.

These changes represent an important shiftfrom an instrumental rationale for includingwomen to intrinsically valuing women’sempowerment. HKI found that creatingstructured opportunities for critical analysisof gender norms sparked a sense of socialinjustice among staff, unleashing their

creativity and commitment to strengthen the gender-transformative potential of theprogramme.

Emily HillenbrandHelen Keller InternationalRoad 82, House 10FGulshan 2, DhakaBangladeshehillenbrand@hki.orgT +88(0) 1751 645727 www.hki.org

Men and women participating in nutrition training in Barisal District, Bangladesh. They areusing a card-sorting game to understand food groups and how to prepare a micronutrient-rich meal with home-grown, affordable produce. HKI, 2011

See alsoImproving Diet Quality and MicronutrientNutrition: Homestead Food Production inBangladesh, IFPRI Discussion Paper 00928,prepared for Millions Fed: Proven Successesin Agriculture. IFPRI: Washington, DC, byLora Ianotti, Kenda Cunningham and MarieRuel, 2009www.ifpri.org/sites/default/files/publications/ifpridp00928.pdf

Women, Food Security and Agriculture ina Global Marketplace, by Rekha Mahraand Mary Hill Rojas, ICRW: Washington,DC, 2008www.icrw.org/publications/women-food-security-and-agriculture-global-marketplace

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Challenging cultural values that affectfood security in India

Women in the region, particularlypoor women, are expected to take on sole (unpaid) responsibility formanaging their families’ nutritionaland other needs – in addition totending crops and other duties. Even if men wish to share domesticactivities, they often hesitate to takeon what is seen as ‘women’s work’.

Despite women’s role in enablingfood security, they often neglect theirown nutritional needs. There is oftenan unspoken rule, reinforced throughcultural and religious norms, that themale breadwinner eats first. Children,especially sons, eat next, whilewomen and girls eat last, by whichtime there may be very little or nofood left. Even during pregnancy,special care is not always taken toensure women receive enough food,despite family counselling on theimportance of eating nutritious foodand getting enough rest during thisvulnerable time. This is also true inmany other parts of rural India.

Such cultural practices are beingchallenged through a project, ‘InnerSpaces Outer Faces Initiative’ run by Care International and theInternational Centre for Research onWomen. The project aims to integratediscussions on gender and sexualityand cultural food practices into amaternal health programme. ‘Innerspaces’ refers to the beliefs andattitudes of staff and serviceproviders that need to be in line with their ‘outer faces’ – the overallprogramme goals such as meetingprimary healthcare and educationalneeds – if positive change is tohappen. A public health adviser mayadvise women to eat three meals aday, for example, or encourage mento eat with their wives. The healthadviser can help ensure a moregender equitable distribution of foodwithin households and contribute tooverall health improvements.

The project provides capacitybuilding for local health andeducation service providers,including reflective sessions whereparticipants are encouraged tochallenge their beliefs relating togender roles and responsibilities.Those showing a willingness tochallenge and change their owncultural values can then act asadvocates for change in thecommunities where they work.

Project leaders find discussing issuesaround food availability and intake auseful entry point for discussinggender inequalities within their ownfamilies and communities, whereastheir professional training has notprepared them to do this. They areable to engage households andcommunities in discussing theimportance of cooking and eatingtogether, feeding children together,and of men and women sharingresponsibilities in the kitchen. Theproject highlights the importance of involving men in discussions ofgender roles.

Key to the success of this project hasbeen the efforts to understand andaddress local cultural issues aroundfood in sensitive ways that challengegender norms. Involving both menand women in discussions about foodsecurity and gender is important, as is the facilitators’ willingness tochallenge their own gender beliefsand practices.

Suniti NeogyCare India, Uttar Pradesh11 Krishna ColonyMahanagar LucknowIndia 226006sneogy@careindia.org T +91 5223920487/8 www.careindia.org

See alsoGender Inequality, Mothers’ Healthand Unequal Distribution of Food:Experience from a CARE Project inIndia, Gender and Development 18(3), by Suniti Neogy, 2010

Engendering Change, film by CARE,2010http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4O0vqZ-lfY&

A flashcard ‘maneating, womanwaiting’ was usedby facilitators todiscuss differencesin household fooddistribution formen and women,and to encourageeating together sothat all get anequal share.Designed bySAHYOG andCARE

There is oftenan unspokenrule,reinforcedthroughcultural andreligiousnorms, thatthe malebreadwinnereats first.

The Indian government sees food security as a fundamental right and has introduced schemes to

improve access to food and nutrition.A project in rural Uttar Pradesh, north-east India, reveals, however, thatgendered patterns in the distributionof food within households often liebeyond the scope of its interventions,so deeply are they ingrained withinlocal culture and tradition.

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Equal access for women to seeds and foodsecurity in Syria

Women need access to seeds – for growingfood crops, for animal feed and to sell forincome. Female and male farmers havedifferent needs regarding seed varietiesdepending on what they do along the food chain. Women’s preferences arelinked to planting, harvesting, weeding,food processing and cooking, whilst mentend to focus on marketing and prioritisingcustomers’ preferences. Seeds are thusselected for marketing purposes rather than

household food security. To improve foodsecurity and ensure equitable development,men and women need to be able to selectand have access to good seeds of relevantvarieties as well as to revenue generated byselling the produce.

Gender issues have generally been ignoredby agricultural research or plant breedingin Syria more broadly in generating orselecting new seed varieties. Improvingwheat and barley varieties, for example,usually focuses on increasing yields whileother traits – such as quality of crops forfood processing and handicrafts – areoverlooked. Varieties are thus generally lessrelevant for women’s needs, with adverseaffects on their role as food providers, andtheir right to enjoy the benefits ofagricultural development more widely.

The Participatory Plant Breeding (PPB)programme in Syria is coordinated by theInternational Center for Agricultural Researchin the Dry Areas. It shows that adopting apro-active approach to ensure a gender-balanced involvement of Syrian farmers toimprove barley varieties can provide bothfemale and male farmers with access to cropvarieties that reflect their needs.

Evidence from the PPB programme suggeststhat unless women’s access to and controlof seeds and subsequent revenues areexplicitly supported by programmes orpolicies, existing gender discriminatorycustomary practices are likely to continue.Yet, legislation currently being developedby the Syrian government to regulatemanagement of its biodiversity does notinclude provision for equal access to andcontrol of seeds and their benefitsgenerated for women and men.

Integrating gender considerations into plantbreeding and policies regulating access toseeds will receive new attention now, at atime when Syria and other countries acrossthe Middle East are experiencing populardemand for change in their governancesystems. New spaces for institutional reform and new opportunities could lead to innovative approaches by national plant-breeding institutes and policies thatguarantee men and women equal access to seeds and enable them to share theirbenefits and ensuing revenue.

Alessandra GaliéInternational Center for Agricultural Researchin Dry Areas and Wageningen UniversityFraz. Castagneti, Via Tozzano 52a63100 Ascoli Piceno, Italya.galie@cgiar.org T +39 0736 41758

See alsoTowards a Feminization of AgriculturalLabour in Northwest Syria, Journal ofPeasant Studies 30 (2), pages 71-94, byMalika Abdelali-Martini, Patricia Goldey,Gwyn Jones and Elizabeth Bailey, January2003

Decentralized-Participatory Plant Breeding:an Example of Demand Driven Research,Euphytica 155 (3), pages 349-360, bySalvatore Ceccarelli and Stefania Grando,2007

Participatory Plant Breeding and GenderAnalysis, PRGA and CGIAR, by Cathy RozelFarnworth and Janice Jiggins, 2003www.prgaprogram.org/descargas/plant_breeding/monographs/PPBMonograph4.pdf

A health worker in Djibouti discussing food and nutrition with a young mother while ona home visit. © Giacomo Pirozzi, Panos Pictures, 2004

In Syria, food security has been a nationalpriority since the 1980s. Most poorpeople live in rural areas and depend on

small-scale farming for survival. Women domanual work such as weeding, fertilising,planting, harvesting and food processing.Men are mainly involved in mechanised and marketing activities. However, small-scale agriculture can no longer sustain rural households. Men are migrating tourban areas looking for paid work whilstthe women, children and older familymembers remain. Women are increasinglyresponsible for producing food yet theyhave limited access to, and control of,essential productive resources and therevenues generated through the sale ofhousehold agricultural produce.

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Engaging the whole family infood security planning in Zambia

Women comprise 85 percent of the totalsmallholder labour force and are largelyresponsible for food security at thehousehold level. Men sell the produce(particularly larger volumes), manage mosthousehold income and are often responsiblefor deciding what to plant where. Women,on the other hand, cannot make importantdecisions in the absence of their malepartners. Women in female-headedhouseholds are freer in this sense but oftenlack sufficient assets to create viablelivelihoods.

The Agricultural Support Programme (2003-08), largely funded by the SwedishInternational Development CooperationAgency, aimed to stimulate attitudinalchange amongst smallholders and toencourage women and men to takeresponsibility for household food security.The programme did not carry out formalgender awareness-raising activities. Otherincentives were used instead, for example,meetings had to have 30 percent femaleattendence, otherwise they would becancelled. Women were asked to sit with themen (which traditionally does not happen) atmeetings and the facilitators were trained toensure women felt free to speak.

At a household level, extension workers metregularly with all adult household membersand older children. They would discuss andagree a vision for the household andprepare a joint action plan. Farmers werediscouraged from selling produce on themarket unless they had set aside enoughfood (maize) for home consumption for theentire year. Farmers were also trained todiversify away from growing just maize todeveloping mixed crop and livestockproduction systems.

The practice of reserving food grains forhousehold consumption is still going onbeyond the life of the programme. Men andwomen believe that agricultural outputs have

increased and that household food securityis better. The household approach hasstarted to create a shift in decision-makingconcerning assets: household membersunderstand that assets belong to the wholehousehold rather than one individual. Theseattitudinal changes to the cultural normsgoverning ‘male’ and ‘female’ roles andresponsibilities are said to have been‘astonishing’.

Furthermore, there are indications that menare not asserting ownership of ‘female’crops that have become lucrative, as hashappened in other parts of sub-SaharanAfrica. Women can market these in theirown right, or if men market them, everyonein the household benefits. Intra-householdrelationships are less tense and moreproductive and men and women feelempowered as a result.

Empowering women is now seen in positiveterms by men, rather than as a threat to theirmasculinity. Men appear to have developedbetter relationships with their wives andcloser rapports with their children and canspeak to them more freely. Working with theentire farming household has increased theresilience and coping strategies of manyhouseholds: all family members understandtheir farming system and have been activelyinvolved in shaping it.

Most significantly, the programme showedthat there is much to be gained fromplanning and decision-making processesthat involve women and men (of all ages) atthe household and community levels. Jointownership over food production decisionscan both increase food security and betransformative, enabling lasting shifts ingender attitudes, roles and behaviour.

Cathy Rozel Farnworthcathyfarnworth@hotmail.com

See alsoGender Approaches in AgriculturalProgrammes - Zambia Country Report. ASpecial Study of the Agricultural SupportProgramme (ASP), SIDA, UTV WorkingPaper 2010:8, by Cathy Rozel Farnworthand Monica Munchonga, Sida, 2010www.sida.se/Global/Gender%20in%20Agriculture%20working%20paper%202010-8%20Zambia.pdf

Feed the Future Gender Assessment, byCathy Farnworth, Vincent Akamandisa andMunguzwe Hichaambwa, USAID Zambia,2011

Groundnut retailer in Mpika market,Zambia. Groundnuts are a key food andcash crop in the Northern Province andmany other parts of the country. Farnworth, 2010

Food security is a challenge in Zambia,where 45 percent of children under fiveare stunted. Most food production

systems are rain-fed and crops areharvested once a year at about the sametime. This results in highly seasonal incomeflows, market gluts, and hungry months for many Zambians. Policies favour maizeproduction even where conditions areunfavourable; other crops suffer from policy, marketing and research neglect. Of particular concern are poor genderrelations in many farming households whichreduce the effectiveness of decision-making.

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Women's groups versus householdsApproaches to achieve food security and gender equality

How can we achieve food security forwomen and girls? Should interventionstarget households, including men, or

should they aim to reach women throughwomen’s groups? Working with groups is aneffective way for development programmesto enable women to increase their control ofassets, improve productivity, and enhancetheir status and wellbeing. The social capitalgenerated by groups is recognised as animportant asset in itself.

Programmes working with women’s groupsin Bangladesh – microfinance programmesfor poor women in particular – havedeveloped innovative means to addresscontext-specific constraints, such as the lowlevels of asset ownership by women andbarriers to mobility outside the household.How do group-based approaches compareto targeting households with the aim ofimproving food security and nutrition withinthe household?

Research from the International Food PolicyResearch Institute has investigated the long-term impact of agricultural technologies(vegetable and polyculture fish production)on men’s and women’s asset accumulationand nutritional status in rural Bangladesh.Household surveys were carried out tenyears apart (1996-97 and 2006-07) atthree sites where non-governmentorganisations have disseminated thesetechnologies to increase incomes andaddress micronutrient deficiencies.

The three projects provided credit andtraining in the following areas:1. polyculture fish production for households,

with a pre-requisite of (sole or shared)pond ownership in central Bangladesh

2. small-scale vegetable growing forwomen’s group members growingvegetables on their families’ homesteadsin central Bangladesh

3. polyculture fish production for women’sgroups, for whom long-term leases ofponds were arranged, in south-westBangladesh.

Project results include:• In site one, the technology mainly targeted

men, who took charge of most productiondecisions and took the fish to market. Thisstrengthened their ownership of theirproductive assets, whereas women’sownership of assets weakened.

• In site two, improvements in women’s andgirls’ nutritional status in particular, and a reduction in the gap in asset ownershipbetween men and women weresignificant.

• In site three, where technologies weredisseminated through women’s groups ina collective ownership model, women’sassets increased more than men’s in thesame households.

These findings show that the way in whichprojects are implemented affects theircapacity to increase women's and men'sassets, and that targeting women’s groupsrather than the household in general may bea more effective way to achieve genderequity.

Targeting groups may achieve gender equityand nutritional goals more easily, yet thisdoes not necessarily lead to more effectivegovernance or increased income. Somegroups in the group fishpond programme(site three) dissolved because of conflictswithin the groups and income gains wererelatively small due to the need to divide theproceeds among many members.

Such programmes can, however, lead togreater cooperation between women andmen. Some of the women’s groups, havebegun bringing in male members to act as a link between the group and the widercommunity, and to fulfill specific functions(such as bookkeeping) that the women arenot trained in.

A more nuanced approach to groupformation and technology diffusion wouldallow groups to tap both male and femaleresources within the household and thecommunity – with the clear goal of reducinggender inequities in ownership and controlof assets.

Agnes Quisumbing and Neha KumarInternational Food Policy Research Institutea.quisumbing@cgiar.orgn.kumar@cgiar.orgwww.ifpri.org

See alsoDoes Social Capital Build Women’sAssets? The Long-Term Impacts of Group-Based and Individual Dissemination ofAgricultural Technology in Bangladesh,CAPRI Working Paper No. 97, by NehaKumar and Agnes Quisumbing, July 2010www.capri.cgiar.org/pdf/capriwp97.pdf

Access, Adoption and Diffusion:Understanding the Long-Term Impacts ofImproved Vegetable and Fish Technologiesin Bangladesh, IFPRI Discussion Paper00995, by Neha Kumar and AgnesQuisumbing, June 2010www.ifpri.org/sites/default/files/publications/ifpridp00995.pdf

A leader of a women’s group in Saturia, Bangladesh, proudly shows her membership cardof Gono Kalyan Trust, an NGO that distributes vegetable seeds to women’s groups inBangladesh. Quisumbing, 2009

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Keywords: food security, gender, women, nutrition, agriculture, food policy, inequality, households, groups, seeds

Editor: Susanne TurrallEditorial and technical support:IDS Knowledge Services team/BRIDGEGuest Editor: Caroline SweetmanAcademic Adviser: Agnes Quisumbing, IFPRIDesign: eve.passingham@synergygroup.uk.comPrinter: Synergygroup.uk.com

Many thanks to all those who contributed to theexpert online discussion in May 2011, andwhose input has helped to inform this insights.

insights, Institute of Development StudiesUniversity of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9RE, UKT +44 1273 915777 F +44 1273 621202insights@ids.ac.uk www.eldis.org/insights

Funded by Irish Aid. The views expressed in thispublication do not necessarily reflect those of IrishAid, IDS or any other contributing institution.

IDS is a Charitable Company No. 877338limited by guarantee and registered in England.© Institute of Development Studies 2011

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ISSN 1460-4205

Food sovereignty and women’srights in Latin America

The food sovereignty movement has thepotential to address gender inequalities: itis grounded in the need to recognise thatrural food producers – men and women –have equal rights. As in many parts of theworld, women play an invisible butsignificant role in food security. Forexample, there is a long tradition of womencollecting and propagating seed varietiesfor nutritional and medicinal uses.

Several women’s organisations in LatinAmerica have made this link, including

Bartolina Sisa in Bolivia and the Network ofRural Women in Venezuela. They promotefood sovereignty as a way to ensureownership over food production andunderpin the struggle for women’s rights.

What is the best way to challenge fixedgender roles and achieve greater genderequality and empowerment? For lastingchange, it is vital to move from rhetoric toreality, by:• enabling women to have equal rights to

land ownership• ensuring equal participation by men in

unpaid care and other reproductiveactivities

• giving reproductive activities the samevalue as productive activities, such asagricultural work

• making the preparation and distributionof food the responsibility of both womenand men

• ensuring greater involvement of women in decisions concerning food productionand distribution.

Pamela CaroCEDEMManuel Thompson 4270,Estación Central Santiago, Chilepamecaro@cedem.tie.clwww.cedem.cl

Useful weblinksEldis Food Security and Gender ResourceGuidehttp://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/food-security/food-security-and-gender

BRIDGE resources on genderwww.bridge.ids.ac.uk

FAO Focus on Genderwww.fao.org/gender/gender-home/en

Gender in Agriculture E-Platformwww.genderinag.org/ginag

Global Food Security Initiativewww.globalfoodsec.net/modules/gfs/knowledge_resource/gender_and_food

ICRW Focus on Agriculture and Food Securitywww.icrw.org/what-we-do/agriculture-food-security

IFPRI Focus on Genderwww.ifpri.org/book-20/ourwork/researcharea/gender

Irish Aid Focus on Hungerwww.irishaid.gov.ie/development_htf.asp

WDR 2012: Gender Equality andDevelopmenthttp://go.worldbank.org/CQCTMSFI40

WFP Empower Women on the Frontlines ofHungerwww.wfp.org/women4women

Women Organizing for Change in Agricultureand Natural Resources Managementwww.wocan.org

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In Latin America, the concept of foodsovereignty has emerged as analternative approach to tackling food

shortages and agricultural problems. Itfocuses on people’s rights to define theirown food and agriculture rather thanhaving food largely subject to internationalmarket forces. It aims to protect localagricultural production and trade with a view to achieving sustainable ruraldevelopment.