Jump to... Summary Food security Project areas Market orientation Project intervention Women's work burden Conclusions Tables Technical appendix References

The context

Despite many dire predictions to the contrary, the world continues to grow food at a rate that exceeds the rate of population growth. While rising per capita food production is no guarantee that hunger can be staved off, it would appear that hunger and malnutrition are actually on the decline. According to the latest estimates, one in five people in the Developing World had calorie-deficient diets in the early 1990s, compared with one in three two decades ago (FAO 1996). It is not just a question of percentages: the absolute number of calorie-deficient persons has also declined, despite the addition of some 1.5 billion new mouths to feed. Furthermore, according to UNICEF statistics (1996), the proportion of underweight children has also diminished throughout the Developing World.

It is a fact, however, that the absolute number of malnourished children continues to increase, especially in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. The enormity of malnutrition in South Asia – which is the home of nearly three quarters of the world’s undernourished children – would seem to be in conflict with the fact that food production in this region has expanded remarkably during the last two decades. Of all the regions of the Developing World, South Asia is outstripped only by East Asia in terms of the growth in per capita food production. In spite of this, South Asia’s record in reducing malnutrition is one of the world’s worst.

The critical discrepancy between sufficient food availability and the existence of malnutrition is a sombre reminder that the challenge of ensuring food security for all involves more than simply raising the level of per capita food production. While efforts to improve food production must continue to play a central role, other measures must also be taken.

The recent changes in South Asia’s macroeconomic policy environment take on a special significance here. Some of the criteria that comprised the core elements of food security policy in the past are no longer applicable in the new context. One of these relates to the achievement of national or regional self-sufficiency in food grain production. The new liberal regime favours free trade and specialization according to comparative advantage, which in many cases means moving away from food grain production towards the more profitable cash crops. The effects of such a shift on the food security of vulnerable groups represent an issue requiring serious investigation. This report attempts to shed some light on the subject.

Another issue of special significance in the South Asian context is the role of women in ensuring household food security (HFS). It is well known that women in South Asia are particularly disadvantaged compared with their counterparts in the rest of the Developing World, and it has been suggested that this may be linked to the exceptionally high prevalence of child undernutrition in the region.² It is not simply that undernourished mothers beget undernourished children. Quite apart from this biological fact is also a social aspect. Recent research indicates that if women have little control over household decision-making processes, especially with regard to household expenditure, less money will be spent on food than would otherwise be the case. Women’s physical well-being and status within the family are thus of critical importance for the food security of household members, particularly children. An essential feature of food security policy in this region should therefore be a focus on women.

A variety of programmes with a direct or indirect bearing on HFS are being implemented in South Asia by concerned national and international agencies. Some of these are targeted specifically towards women, while others are more general in orientation. It is important to keep the lessons learned from these efforts under constant review so as to make the best possible use of scarce resources.

This paper attempts to do so by drawing lessons from some regions in India and Nepal where IFAD has helped to set up major intervention programmes for the poor. These programmes are the Tamil Nadu Women Development Project (India), the Andhra Pradesh Tribal Development Project (India) and the Production Credit for Rural Women Project (Nepal).

A household survey has been conducted in all three regions. Because of limited time and resources, it was not possible to use a statistically representative sample of any of the projects’ catchment areas. As a result, the findings in this report should not be construed as an exercise in project evaluation, nor is this the objective. The objective has been to shed some light on how project interventions of the type supported by IFAD might make a better contribution towards improving the food security of the poor. It has therefore been sufficient to work with a purposively selected sample.³

Chapter 2 of this report provides a conceptual framework for developing an analysis of food security issues. Chapter 3 gives a brief description of the food security situation in the survey areas, followed by a discussion of some issues that should be of particular concern to policy-makers and the designers of intervention programmes. Chapter 4 addresses the increased market orientation of the livelihood of the poor and its consequent impact on their food security. Information collected in the survey areas is utilized to lend empirical substance to this discussion. Chapter 5 investigates how the women-oriented focus of intervention programmes can contribute to HFS. Chapter 6 examines the trade-offs that may arise in implementing intervention programmes, with special reference to women-focused programmes, and presents evidence of such trade-offs from the survey areas. Chapter 7 summarizes the major points and draws some policy conclusions. A technical appendix follows, giving the results of the statistical analysis.

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2/ See, for example, Osmani (1990).

3/ For details of the survey methodology, see Azad (1996).