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).

iii. Andhra Pradesh

(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.