[Wigsat-l] Food Crisis and Gender

[Sophia Huyer]

Excerpted from Foreign Policy in Focus, November 1, 2008:

The Food Crisis and Gender
by Katherine Coon

Statistics on the most recent global food crisis are well known. In  
the three years
leading up to June 2008, food prices rose 83%. Although declining  
since, they are still
60% higher than in 2006. There is little prospect of returning to the  
cheap food regimes
that characterized the world prior to 2005 anytime in the foreseeable  
future. So far,
the food crisis has pushed an estimated 75 million people into chronic  
hunger since
2005.
Women and children, particularly girls, have been hardest hit by the  
food crisis. In
part, this disproportionate impact is because women in poor rural  
communities have less
access to resources, transportation, and communication networks. Any  
effective
resolution to the food crisis - and to reinforce food security more  
generally - must
incorporate an understanding of this differential impact on gender  
roles.

Rural Poverty

( . . . ) three-quarters of those subsisting on less than $1 a day  
live in rural areas
of the global South, depending on either small-holder farming, selling  
labor, or a
combination of both to survive. They are also net food buyers,  
spending up to 80% of
their income on food. Not coincidentally, three-quarters of everyone  
suffering from
chronic malnutrition also live in these same rural areas ( . . . )   
Women and children
(especially girls) are more vulnerable to food, fuel, and fertilizer  
price increases,
and to rural poverty generally, than men. This is, of course, not  
intended as gender
one-upmanship; men also experience hardship caused by the  
marginalization of rural
societies. But because rural agrarian societies are gendered in terms  
of property
rights, the division of labor, direct knowledge of the natural  
resource base, and
access to and control over productive resources, an understanding of  
gender in rural
households and communities is a prerequisite to informed critiques of  
development
policies and strategies ( . . . )

Vulnerability of Women and Children

Compared to men, women's independent property rights, legal  
protections, and social
networks are fragile and contested in much of the world. Women have  
less access to or
control over resources, transportation, or communication networks than  
men. As a
consequence, female-headed households are sometimes disproportionately  
among the
poorest of the poor in rural areas. And because rural poverty, civil  
conflict, and HIV
are exacting their toll in the form of migration, suicide,  
debilitating illness, and
mortality among prime-age adults, households legally or de facto  
managed by women now
comprise 30-60% of all rural households in parts of eastern and  
southern Africa.
Furthermore, these households tend to face the additional challenge of  
caring for sick
adults and feeding and educating young children. In places that have  
been affected by
repeated shocks over the long term, especially in eastern and southern  
Africa, women
have become the primary farmers and managers in their communities. The  
main face of
rural society has become female ( . . . )

Read the whole story at:  http://www.commondreams.org/print/34076

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