Food Security, Productivity, and Gender Inequality - The Oxford Topic of Food, Politics, and Society - page 291

more, however, about the factors that are most conducive to sustainable group forma-
tion; the productivity benefits (carefully measured) of these groups; and the poten-
tial for their geographic growth, say, by encouraging existing women's groups, such as
India's Self-Help Groups (SHGs)—of which there are over 2.5 million—to take up joint
ventures.
Women as Consumers and Food
Managers: Improving Access
Women's role in mitigating hunger for themselves and their families will be served to
an important extent by increasing their access to assets and land, and enhancing their
farm productivity and control over incomes. However, there are also large numbers of
women (rural and urban) who depend for their food security on wage employment and
nonfarm self-employment. Here, food security is linked directly to how many jobs go to
women, and whether the schemes that provide work are directed at women.
In recognition of the special role women play in mitigating family hunger, some
countries have initiated measures that directly increase women's resources, such as
making conditional cash transfers to women in Latin America (World Bank 2001), or
the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) in India,
which guarantees 100 days of employment for one person per household. Although not
specifically directed at women, MNREGA has attracted a large number of women; a
study of six states found that women constituted 32% of the MNREGA workers on aver-
age (Khera and Nayak 2009: 52).
Many of the general schemes being discussed by governments and international agen-
cies for enhancing food security could also gain by the greater involvement of women.
In Andhra Pradesh, for example, federations of women's Self-Help Groups (SHGs) have
been buying foodgrain in bulk and selling them to poor members at a nominal price
or on short-term credit, thus contributing to income smoothing (Nair and Shah 2007).
Recent studies show that 55-60% of SHG members are poor and socially disadvantaged
(EDA 2006, NCAER 2008), but even when the SHGs do not consist mainly of the poor,
they can reach the poor. The DDS women's groups, described earlier, have also set up
community grain banks (Agarwal 2003). All this suggests that, women's groups could
prove effective in creating local buffer stocks and regional food banks, and in improving
public distribution systems, if they had access to infrastructure for food storage and dis-
tribution. Women-inclusive forest governance can also bring substantial gains, both in
terms of improved conservation outcomes and women's greater access to gathered food
items (Agarwal 2010a).
Essentially, viewing agriculture and related sectors through the lens of gender will
reveal the many ways in which women farmers are contributing to food systems glob-
ally, and it helps pinpoint mechanisms for making their efforts more effective. This