10/12/2018 - Gender and Health

KEY POINTS

Role of women in ensuring food security

·        Women play key roles in food provisioning as producers, home food managers, and consumers. As producers, they constitute a high and growing proportion of farmers. In India, 35 per cent of agricultural workers are women (NSSO 2011-12).

·        Women also contribute to food systems through forests and fisheries. One in six persons globally depends on forests for supplementary food, green manure, fodder, firewood, etc. Women and girls are the main gatherers of forest products, especially food and firewood; the latter continues to be the primary cooking fuel in most of rural India, 

·        According to the World Bank, seafood is globally the main source of protein for a billion people. Women constitute 46 per cent of workers in small-scale fisheries and 54 per cent in inland fisheries. Although marine products are harvested mainly by men, it is aquaculture more in women’s domain, which is the fastest-growing, and predicted to provide over 50 per cent of fish consumed globally by 2020.

·        The potential lies in its focus on women’s access to land and property, and natural resources. Secure land rights for women can improve both their productivity as farmers and family nutritional allocations. 

Better nutritional outcomes

·        ASHA workers mainly constitute of women played major in reducing infant and maternal mortality rate. Eg. 40.4/1000 live births as of 2018. In 2011 it was 72/1000 live births.

·        Increasing income generation for women resulted in better health in the family as women tend to spend the amount for the welfare of the family in many households.

·        Diet diversification in rural areas as women farmers finds easy to grow more millets rather than cereals.