Recommendations
The overall recommendations relating to HFS issues in the three
projects researched are provided under the following headings:
(a)
General Recommendations
(b)
Specific Recommendations
(c)
Policy Level Recommendations
(d)
Policy Support Recommendations
General recommendations
The role of thrift and credit groups
The first step in the process of ensuring food security seems to
be the organization of groups through social mobilization (women,
tribals, smallholders or the landless). Through mechanisms to foster
solidarity, support and the capacity to bear risks and meet challenges,
groups are ideal for absorbing inputs at lower cost per unit and
for achieving greater effectiveness. In a scenario involving class,
gender and caste inequities, solidarity and group pressure seem
to be critical programme strategies that can provide points of leverage
and greater power to women to manage and control household processes,
as is evident in the Tamil Nadu project. But during the period of
change from traditional roles to the newly emerging ones, if there
is no training about changing gender roles, women may remain victims,
especially in terms of health care and food intake. Gender training
for all project participants is therefore essential right from the
start.
The organization of TCGs favours poor women’s group
responses to issues such as land reform, environment policies and the
erosion of customary rights.
The leverage for dealing with the intrahousehold allocatory
process has been greatest in Tamil Nadu owing to the emphasis on group
processes and backed by a large amount of savings. Such leverage has also
been evident in Nepal, although to a lesser extent (the project there
is small, and the available capital has therefore been more limited).
The lack of organization has been most evident in Andhra Pradesh, where
the traditional social status of tribal women is deteriorating owing to
the absence of organized women’s groups that can deal effectively
with the changes.
Small water sources
The other most critical variable in HFS is irrigation
through small check dams (developed mainly by NGOs and TCGs). Irrigation
ensures a greater supply of food (the transformation of dryland into wetland,
the continuous availability of wage labour, including wages in kind, increased
funding for the environment, less tendency to migrate) and has a strong
impact in terms of more equitable intrahousehold food allocation, which
is important during lean periods.
Gender-sensitive extension systems
In spite of the fact that the net inflow of income to
households has increased following the shift to cash crops, this has also
led to changes in the household management of market transactions and
in household income custody, tending to deteriorate the traditionally
recognized gender-based structure of responsibilities. Consequently, there
has been a clear reduction in household food expenditure, as women have
lost power in terms of the custody of income and resources. This situation
could be remedied through interventions to provide extension services
and inputs to women (credit, marketing), but also reflecting women’s
time constraints and accompanied by the introduction of training modules
on HFS.
Marketing minor forest produce
The GCC in Andhra Pradesh highlights the need for a
new marketing strategy for the poor, and it has certainly improved the
access to markets among tribals. But in many instances, it has not been
able to fulfil its objective of bringing the markets to the doorstep of
the tribals, especially those living in the interior. The possibility
of linking up with fair trade organizations to market organically grown
spices, coffee, rajma (pidgeon pea) and other produce merits attention
and could certainly be explored.
The identification of the poorest
One of the drawbacks of the project in Nepal and, to
a lesser extent, that in Tamil Nadu is the apparent difficulty of identifying
chronically food-insecure households in the target areas and assisting
them through programme strategies. It is therefore essential to implement
a vigorous identification strategy based on participatory-rural-appraisal-type
indicators so as to locate the poorest households and female-headed households,
which are the most vulnerable.
Female agents
The role of female extension workers has been pivotal
to the programmes owing to the social ‘distance’ between women
and men workers who are strangers to the community and the connotations
of this distance. For example, the problem with the savings and thrift
societies, some of which are no longer operational in project areas in
Andhra Pradesh, has been the result of the lack of a catalyst rather than
of any inefficiency or distortion in implementation practices. The district
government officials must cover a large, unfriendly terrain alone, and
there is no support for follow-up measures. Clearly, these thrift and
savings groups can be activated only if there is a local, community-based
initiative akin to the NGOs in the Tamil Nadu Women’s Development
Project.
Specific recommendations
Tamil Nadu
(a) Establish food security measures such as check dams, grain
banks, gender and nutrition training and credit backup for the management
of ration shops.
(b) Allow for greater NGO inputs and the strengthening
of group processes such as social mobilization and training for social
action.
(c) Provide more accurate identification of beneficiaries
so as to reach the poorest, and measures to raise repayment rates.
Nepal
a) Strengthen the holistic approach towards women’s and
HFS programming, that is, the provision of community-based fuel, fodder,
water pumps for drinking water and small irrigation sources, and loans
through TCGs.
(b) For the benefit of women, introduce drudgery-saving
devices for food processing, cooking and storage.
(c) Create better linkages with mainline departments (veterinary,
agriculture, banking and so on).
(d) Create district women’s economic development
corporations.
(e) Focus on women among agricultural extension systems.
(f) Increase the number of female extension staff in food-insecure
areas.
(g) Offer more direct outreach in favour of socially disadvantaged
groups, such as lower castes.
(h) Promote diversification among microenterprises (that
is, non-land-based activities).
Andhra Pradesh
(a) As a first priority, initiate TCGs (through NGOs) in order
to strengthen the grass-roots layer of implementation.
(b) Adopt mixed cropping, that is, a mix of cash
and subsistence crops, to offset any bias in favour of cash crops.
(c) Conduct, through TCGs, a campaign against alcohol
abuse, including training among men and the creation of detoxification
centres.
(d) Develop grain banks, which represent a viable scheme.
(e) Increase the number of daily requirement and voluntary
depots.
(f) Improve dryland farming techniques.
(g) support diversification of the single resource base;
encourage new schemes for forestry; hold nutrition demonstrations; distribute
vegetable seeds and kits and save grain campaigns, and establish a system
for identifying business opportunities.
(h) Encourage a review of the environment policy restricting
cultivation on podu land.
Policy-level recommendations
It is clear that HFS strategies are implemented by the
poor within a larger livelihood-security construct. As a follow-up to
the World Food Summit, it is therefore essential that governments reorient
their food security models by making women pivotal and assigning them
a critical role in the TCGs.
South Asia contains more poor than any other region
of the world, and a significant number of these poor are women. Advocacy
with national governments on the role of women in household food security
should involve recognition of the importance of women in the issues addressed
by national food and agricultural policies, among others. Because of women’s
role in sustainable agriculture, the need must be recognized of investing
in women through the extension system on a priority and specialized basis
(that is, specialized extension services and education, training in high-yield
varieties, organic farming and fertilizer preparation, seed preservation,
cropping patterns, the use of post-harvest technologies and so on).
The support prices need to be strengthened for agricultural
and minor forest products, which are critical to overall household well-being.
Policies that endanger the access of vulnerable groups to such products
need to be identified. Similarly, to the extent that it erodes the livelihood
systems of poor households dependent on the fishing industry, coastal
policy (that is, fishing rights and land usage for acquaculture) needs
to be revised, and advocacy is necessary for achieving this.
Government-sponsored and subsidized feeding and mid-day
meal schemes for children should be supported, as they have vital implications
for net food inputs for households and, ultimately, for child health.
The need for national policies towards women (including
women’s role in food security) should be advocated in both India
and Nepal to ensure a holistic conceptualization of gender in the approach
to food-security issues. Of the survey’s respondents, 38% were living
in female-headed households. National policies on women should provide
entitlements for women’s employment through access to credit, land
(titles), social legislation (dowry, infanticide), compulsory primary
education and training (including vocational training) and other areas.
Women’s organization and mobilization should be the first priority,
with government policy supporting the organization and mobilization of
women through autonomous NGOs and CBOs and so on, thus generating a demand
for women’s entitlements.
It is necessary to recognize and institutionalize women’s
participation in the public distribution system through TCGs and SHGs
as this will have implications for the access and entitlement issue in
general, particularly if female-headed households are targeted.
Government employment guarantee schemes (especially
labour-intensive public works) have been found to represent a major support
for food-insecure households in all three project areas. In turn, this
can encourage a fairly viable package of resources for the creation of
facilities such as dams, roads and other infrastructure (Tamil Nadu and
Nepal). This should be supported wherever possible.
Land is central to the whole analysis because it is
the major physical resource available to low-income households. Most of
the available land is poor in quality, and there is not very much of it.
Nonetheless, it has become evident that, with the input of small water
resources or check dams, the available drylands could be used to grow
several crops or could be transformed into wetlands. Small irrigation
schemes appear to be very critical to the food security of households.
It is necessary to advocate on behalf of the inclusion of minor irrigation
resources in water resources policy.
Wherever land grant schemes provide titles to poor households,
they are used resourcefully and profitably. Land reform policy is therefore
a critical input for attaining household food security, especially if
titles are granted to women. Similarly, it is evident that land grant
schemes, as in the Terai, can be extremely effective in stemming migration
and helping in the organization of the peasantry. In Nepal, in particular,
acceleration of the granting of land is essential if the livelihood conditions
of the lower caste and the more food-insecure households are to be improved.
In terms of environment policy, it is very clear that
the elimination of podu cultivation in Andhra Pradesh has had severe
implications for the total food consumption of the households surveyed.
On the other hand, the destruction of the forest cover also has serious
implications for the environment in the long run. A review of the rigid
implementation of the elimination of podu within the framework
of a people-oriented environment policy would be revealing. This would
imply compensation through land grants to those households that are landless
except for their access to podu land. Horticultural plantations
could be set up, and dryland-farming inputs could be emphasized simultaneously,
so that neither food security nor the environment were jeopardized. A
phased implementation of the enforcement would, of course, be necessary.
In terms of structural adjustment policies, it is clear
that nutrient consumption declined in food-insecure households as food
prices increased. The substitution of cheap nutrients for more expensive
items (rice substituted for sorghum in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu)
is one illustration in this regard. In the case of the increase in the
price of sorghum (or pulses and vegetables), the consumption among poor
households declined sharply. On the other hand, the households that were
relatively food secure did not replace sorghum, since they were producing
the basic cereal themselves. The situation is similar regarding the consumption
of gruel to extend cereals. This coping strategy is used mostly during
lean seasons and involves the purchase of smaller quantities because of
the high cost and the poor purchasing power.
Health policy needs to provide adequate support for
improving traditional and indigenous practices (which are effective and
not exploitative), as the respondents in Nepal and Andhra Pradesh utilize
these practices widely. Furthermore, medical expenses are a major cause
of debt. Attention needs to be given, in particular, to safe motherhood,
weaning practices and prenatal care for mothers.
National nutrition policies should focus on vulnerable
groups among women. Improvement in water supply and in access to water
sources that are not contaminated (such as streams and lakes) is essential
if the proper health of households is to be ensured. Similarly, as 100%
of the respondents have no access to private toilets, government investment
in toilets or community-based facilities is essential.
Technology policy needs to pay attention to women’s
drudgery in the processing of food and to widening the base of energy-efficient
cooking practices. Food processing accounts for the largest amount of
women’s time. This time use could be diverted productively to adult
education, training and other activities, thus lessening the drudgery.
Community forestry or community fuel wood farms need to be established
as development programmes in areas where women’s time and energy
are expended on fuel wood collection.
Finally, policies in favour of vulnerable groups in
South Asia need to be backed by specialized inputs, especially in the
case of scheduled and primitive tribal groups. A policy engineered to
foster the reversal of social inequities should be considered for the
benefit of vulnerable groups. Such a policy would entitle these groups
to specialized inputs and opportunities.
Policy support recommendations
IFAD’s rich experience with innovative and people’s
participatory approaches in South Asia is unique in comparison with other
international lending institutions. It is important to profit from the
experiences gained through the Tamil Nadu Women’s Development Project
in India and the Production Credit for Rural Women project in Nepal by
advocating several strategies. A campaign should be taken up to promote
women as pivotal investment priorities in national food security policies
in South Asia through media advocacy, national policy workshops, sensitization
training and the preparation of case profiles and by highlighting the
successful experiences:
(a) Short case studies of successful programmes in South Asia
could be compiled and then disseminated widely among central training
institutions for government workers, planners, bankers and academic institutions,
as well as mainline government departments, multi and bilateral agencies,
NGOs and the like, especially in terms of the new partnership between
the poor and the state as symbolized by the Tamil Nadu project.
(b) The shift in the food-security construct from purely
macro production and PDS interventions to microenterprises and TCGs
as support variables needs to be impressed upon national governments,
policy-makers, economists, planners, agriculture, food and women’s
ministries and so on through country-level sensitization workshops.
The role of international development agencies and of IFAD in engineering
this shift in favour of women should be highlighted.
