Gender, Food Security & Rural Livelihoods - Maithreyi Krishnaraj

Food security remains a major concern in India as agriculture is in crisis. Food security depends not only on production and the market but also on the social and political structures which include gender within which markets are situated. Women have always been engaged in agriculture. And today the figure is close to 80 percent. Left with the responsibility of running farms because of male migration, women find work burdens have increased without growth in productivity. They lack rights to land. Technological change means that women lose their jobs like threshing rice or making rice products at home. They may get jobs in rice mills, but at low wages. They end up having less to eat when they never got enough anyway. So though agriculture has more women working, they are earning less, and there is less food security for them and their families. Malnutrition is common because when there is less food going around, women earn less so that men and children get more. In this changing context, the contributors explore women's roles in agriculture and the household, both areas where their contributions are unwaged, and discuss the interrelated concepts of gender, livelihood and food security.