Monthly Focus

ADVOCACY

Where We Stand: Women and ... Food Security

Soroptimist International is committed to the achievement of world food security and supports interventions which protect and promote the human right of everyone to adequate food, with particular emphasis on women and girls.  Women produce a majority of food in developing countries and half of the world’s food, yet they have limited access to resources, a lack of recognition of their labours, insufficient purchasing power, and social, economic, and cultural barriers which threaten their food security.   

Soroptimist International urges governments to:

1. increase investment in agriculture and incentives to farmers, particularly women farmers in developing countries;
2. liberalize trade rules in agriculture and ensure that women farmers receive fair financial compensation for their work;
3. ensure the right of women and girls to obtain all forms of education and training, including vocational skills which teach women and girls to farm, fish, and produce food;
4. ensure women’s rights to own land;
5. collect sex-disaggregated data to understand the differences in production, purchasing, and usage in food and cash crops; 
6. ensure rural women’s equal treatment in land reform and access to agricultural extension services, technology, credit schemes and marketing facilities;
7. reconsider the use of food-based bio-fuels, aimed at reducing competition between food and fuel for scarce land, water and other resources;
8. promote access to healthy, balanced diets, specifically aimed at women and girls and ensuring that women have access to adequate and appropriate nutrition during pregnancy;
9. promote the reduction and recycling of agricultural and food waste; and
10. support measures which reduce the exposure of people to the effects of climate change, market instability, natural and man-made disasters, other risks and social protection programmes which mitigate hunger and help people cope with unavoidable risks and emergencies.

Soroptimist International supports:

1. UN declarations which recognize the fundamental right of everyone to adequate food, including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Article 11;
2. the integration of measures against discrimination of particular social or ethnic groups and of women in government’s poverty reduction and food security strategies;
3. transparent decision-making processes of governments and clear identification of those in charge of resources; and
4. policies and programmes which ensure women’s access to land, credit, agricultural inputs, education and training, decision-making, appropriate agricultural or fishing technology, and appropriate income.

Soroptimist International will:

Raise awareness by supporting the Millennium Development Goals and all United Nations initiatives aimed at achieving world food security, particularly for women and girls, and an equitable distribution and access to food supplies in relation to need and gender, and monitor governments;

Advocate for a definition of food security which enables equitable resource distribution, food production and purchasing, for gender mainstreaming in food and  food security policies, and to eradicate discrimination at family, community, and societal levels which negatively impacts access to food for women and girls;  and

Act by supporting practical food and nutrition, education, training and other food security type interventions which empower women to gain control over and access to adequate safe and nutritious food and other  resources for their families.

AWARENESS

What is Food Security?

The World Health Organisation quotes the 1996 World Food Summit definition:

"Food security exists when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life”

Food security not only refers to the physical availability of food, but also the economic ability to access food. It also requires that food meets the dietary needs of the people - it must be nutritious and culturally appropriate.

The WHO argue that food security is built on three pillars:

1. Food availability: sufficient quantities of food available on a consistent basis.
2. Food access: having sufficient resources to obtain appropriate foods for a nutritious diet.
3. Food use: appropriate use based on knowledge of basic nutrition and care, as well as adequate water and sanitation.

There is a great deal of debate around food security with some arguing that:

1. There is enough food in the world to feed everyone adequately; the problem is distribution.
2. Future food needs can - or cannot - be met by current levels of production.
3. National food security is paramount - or no longer necessary because of global trade.
4. Globalization may - or may not - lead to the persistence of food insecurity and poverty in rural communities.

Why are Rural Women so Important?

Women play a pivotal role in agriculture and food production. Women produce between 60 and 80 per cent of the food in most developing countries and are responsible for half of the world's food production, yet their key role as food producers and providers, and their critical contribution to household food security, is only now being recognised.

Women in rural communities often take on the responsibility of providing food in the home. Women often farm small subsistence plots of land to provide food for their families. Larger scale farming and/or the choice to farm 'cash crops' (for example, coffee, mangos or coco) is the responsibility of the father, brother or husband. Women are also responsible for at least half the tasks involved in the local storing of food and raising of animals in isolated rural communities. For these reasons, women are the foundation of community level food security.

Despite this crucial role, the recognition of the role of women in agricultural production remains limited in international and national policy making. Financial and technological investment is still overwhelmingly focused on commercial farming - still a male domonated enterprise. There is an inherent male bias in such policies which further marginalise female agriculturalists who tend to restrict commercial activity to local markets and simple, but time intensive, value added processes such as grinding or drying of produce.

If the millions of rural women working to secure the food security of their communities had access to even a small percentage of some of the investment, knowledge and tools afforded commercial enterprise, lives would be changed. Not only would fewer communities suffer from hunger, but the women who often work a 'double day' in the home and then in the fields, would have access to technologies which make farming more efficient, less labour intensive and more profitable.

More investment is needed to develop gender appropriate tools and technologies to aid the activities of female agriculturalists. This covers a range of issues from securing land rights for women, to promoting and making available appropriate technologies, to rectifying the bias towards commerical farming.

Barriers to Farming for Profit

Creating a surplus yield is a pre requisite to commercial farming. When a surplus is created, there is more food with which to feed the family, there is food to sell (providing an income which can then be invested into land, education, health or the community), and there is more food available in the markets, increasing local food security. Of course, making the jump from subsistence level farming to farming for profit (producing a regular surplus) requires an initial investment in order to access the knowledge, tools, seeds and land required.

Research has found that women are reluctant to engage in practices associated with commerical farming, such as crop diversification and modernisation, due to the initial expense involved. In countries where women are not protected by property and land law, and where assets are usually held by the husband, father or brother, women are not guaranteed access to the benefits of investment heavy practices such as crop diversification or tool purchase. As long as women are considered inferior to men in terms of their legal status, they will remain trapped in subsistence level production because there is less financial risk involved.

UN Women and the Empowerment of Rural Women:

Michelle Bachelet, Executive Director of UN Women, gave the following speech in September 2011 at an open dialogue on empowering rural women for food and nutrition security:

"We’ve heard that the problem is not one of too little food, but of poor distribution—not only of food products but of support for those who produce it and of the policies that control where it ends up.

The Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that giving women the same access as men to agricultural resources could increase their farm production by 20 to 30 percent, raising agricultural production in developing countries by up to 4 percent. It would also mean 100 to 150 million fewer people going hungry.

Food security is a household as well as a national imperative. Some women have sought to cope by skipping meals, usually more often than men, to feed their children, switching to cheaper and less nutritious food and selling off their assets.

For these and other reasons, it is important to make sure that women have equal access to opportunities, and land and credit and other resources."

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