Theme: Women use a number of different strategies to cope with food insecurity, often to their own disadvantage.

An IFAD study undertaken in 1998 reviewed the question of food security under three projects that the Fund had supported, two in India and one in Nepal. Among the key questions were how women coped with food shortages and the impact of the projects on the women themselves.

The study found that, in spite of some improvement, there were continuing household-level and external challenges to food security. In two of the projects, the study noted a total food consumption increase among the majority of households. It also found that, overall, the proportion of the most- food-insecure households (defined as those unable to consume sufficient cereals for more than three months) was reduced from one in five to one in ten over a five-year period. But the proportion of most-food-secure households (defined as those consuming enough cereals for more than nine months) had also been reduced. Households falling into the middle category (those consuming enough cereals from three to nine months) increased from 44% to 58%. Overall, cereals consumption had increased for nearly half the households but had declined for about a third. In terms of cereal and non-cereal food consumption, just over fifty percent of households reported an increase, while only a quarter reported a decline. Although food security had generally improved, the majority of households still did not have enough food to last the full year.

The poorer and single-livelihood households found it particularly difficult to find ways of feeding their families, especially during the lean periods of the year. They tended to use a number of different coping strategies, such as selling smaller animals; borrowing money from moneylenders; performing wage work (for women and men); mortgaging land; underselling products to get quick cash; performing small income-generating activities such as collecting and selling fuel wood; and calling on children’s labour.

Women were the most involved in finding ways to deal with food insecurity. The study noted several ways that women coped with the acquirement and utilization aspects of household food security. Several of women’s coping approaches were at a disadvantage to the women and had a negative impact on their health.These included:

• reducing their food intake and the intake that of their daughters;
• sharing food surplus between households;
• using food that expanded in the stomach (e.g., gruel), especially for themselves;
• cooking food only once a day and using side dishes in order to reduce the fuel used and time spent (freeing up time for earning an income);
• consuming processed foods that kept without special storage (dried vegetables, flour of mango kernel);
• purchasing cheaper staples to replace costlier and more nutritious items; and
• working harder and longer on productive activities to earn cash for buying food.

Strategies for coping with food shortages varied between countries. In the study area in Nepal, they included:

However, while women frequently lose out in the intrafamily distribution, this is not the case with all ethnic groups. For instance, another IFAD study in Nepal found that among the Praja in the upper hill slopes of the Chitwan District, the family shared food in equal amounts, including food for the children. When the woman was pregnant, she even received an extra ‘foetus share’. Here, women do not even necessarily wait for the men to come home before beginning their meal. But this is an exception rather than a rule.

In line with traditional patterns of intrahousehold food allocation, women often deprive themselves. After the harvest, when surplus food was available, they sometimes ate almost as well as the rest of the family, except where the structure of upper-caste conjugal units and behavioral norms (as in Nepal) required them to eat different types of food. But during the part of the year when food was scarce, it was not unusual for women to eat gruel twice a day (even in Tamil Nadu), eat powdered mango kernel (in Andra Pradesh) or eat nothing but maize bread and salt, or to starve twice a week – sometimes along with their families (in Nepal). Even better-off households reduced the consumption of vegetables, pulses and oil during lean periods, especially for women. Commonly, the time of greatest food stress for women tends to coincide with the time of year when they have to spend more time and energy on household and productive tasks.

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While women use a number of strategies for coping with food insecurity, these are often the most disadvantageous to the women themselves. The periods of food insecurity and the coping strategies used need to be taken into consideration by development projects.