External Pressures: Macro Policies

In Andhra Pradesh, the loss of podu cultivation and the forest resource base required for food supply has increased women’s time contribution to livelihood security. In addition, the commercialization of plantations in nearby areas has also made foraging and firewood collection difficult owing to the longer walk to access them.

One of the strategies adopted by women has been to cook food once a day. Gruel is easy to cook and can be retained as a leftover. Women seek to minimize the time spent cooking. This has implications in terms of the quality and nutritional levels of diets and in terms of complementarity.

In Andhra Pradesh, there has been a constant search for cash-generating employment so that people can buy food on the market. Women have to perform wage work and leave preschool-age children at home, which has adverse implications for child development. In Tamil Nadu, where the food supply is dependent on the market and consequent price elasticities, the impact of structural adjustment programmes is most evident, in spite of increased incomes. Cheaper staples have begun to replace the costlier and nutritionally richer items.

In Nepal, where market dependence is low, structural adjustment programmes have not had such a severe impact on household food supplies (except for agricultural inputs and so on). However, land reform and environment policy have had a serious impact on the resource-poor families to which entitlement has been denied.

The macro policies affecting households in the project area can be summed up as follows:

(a) Environment policies have eroded women’s traditional resource base (land and forests) and led to diminishing food supplies.

(b) Lack of land reform has denied poor households access to land – a key resource base and determinant of HFS. Furthermore, women have no legal rights to land.

(c) Structural adjustment policies, because of their impact on price elasticities, have led women to lower their food intake or substitute costlier traditional nutrients with cheaper staples in order to cope. The withdrawal of subsidies and government support programmes for mid-day meal schemes have also had an impact. Women’s time allocation for fulfilling household food supply requirements has increased, although the adequacy of the nutritional intake of women is declining. During these periods of food stress, the allocatory practices are the most discriminatory against women.

(d) Coastal policies have provided rights to commercial fishing enterprises as opposed to traditional fishing families and have thus eroded the resource base and livelihoods of these families.

(e) Water resource policy has been more in favour of larger irrigation projects, and women’s access to small sources of irrigation is consequently almost non-existent.

(f) Agricultural extension policy has been directed mainly towards men, although women have theoretical entitlements. On the other hand, women work more hours than do men in production-related activities.

(g) Excise policy ensures free access to alcohol (owing to the high revenue accruing).

(h) Banking policy has social objectives, but is implemented ambiguously. The provision of microfinancing to women is a most neglected area, and the policy is not supported by a sensitive implementation structure.

Internal Pressures: The Household

Internal pressures – especially in the production, allocation and consumption process – are dictated by cultural variables, such as sex, age, caste and patriarchy.

Surplus food supplies are available mainly after the harvest, when intra-allocatory practices for women are less rigid. During the lean seasons women often consume gruel twice a day (Tamil Nadu), eat powdered mango kernel (Andhra Pradesh) or simply consume maize bread with salt. In some parts of Nepal and Tamil Nadu, women feel that rice is a luxury item, and so it is left mainly for the men or the children.

Vegetable, pulse and oil consumption is reduced during lean periods, especially among women. In Nepal, a range of processed vegetables are eaten during the lean season. In Andhra Pradesh, lean-season food includes tubers, roots, greens and wild fruits from the forests. Most households in Nepal and Andhra Pradesh refrain from buying vegetables from the market; however, the sharing of surplus vegetables or meat is a customary practice.

In the Andhra Pradesh project context, women’s traditional access to land for subsistence crops is decreasing with the increasing cash crop economy, and, consequently, women’s control over food supply and cash income has also declined.

Indicators of food insecurity include the use of tamarind stone and mango kernel powder with black tea during the lean seasons (Andhra Pradesh) or the amount of salt consumed by households in Nepal. (One impoverished household consumed up to 30 kg of salt per month during the lean period.) In Tamil Nadu, gruel and tamarind soup are widely utilized as lean-season foods.

In Nepal and Tamil Nadu, approximately 65% of the respondents have reported a total food consumption increase. In Nepal, 80% of the respondents have declared that their current sources of income could feed a family well for 9 to 12 months. In Andhra Pradesh, the largest number of respondents (approximately 40%) have noted no change in terms of food consumption, while only 30% have reported an increase. The major reason for declining food consumption, as reported by 41% of the respondents, is loss of podu land as a result of the environment protection policy.

Food expenditure as a total of household expenditure is highest in Andhra Pradesh (74.42%), while in Tamil Nadu it is 70.67%, and in Nepal, 63.48%.

Among respondents in Tamil Nadu, 50% have indicated a decline in debt. This compares to 40% in Nepal and 30% in Andhra Pradesh. Coping ability had risen during the five years previous to the survey among respondents in Tamil Nadu (73%) and Nepal (70%), while nearly 48% of the respondents in Andhra Pradesh indicated a lower coping ability.

The coping responses used to meet food expenditure during the lean season are a reduction in food intake (women and girls), the consumption of processed food (dried vegetables, mango kernel flour), borrowing in kind (from moneylenders, wholesalers), the sale of small animals, the mortgage of land, greater allocation of women’s time and energy to domestic and productive tasks, wage work and child labour.