The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) recently released their 2010 report on the State of Food Insecurity in the World.
"The number of undernourished people remains unacceptably high," the report begins - higher, in fact, than it was 40 years ago. To address this problem, the report lays out various key messages: the importance of long-term responses, supporting local institutions, agriculture and the rural economy, modifying the current aid architecture to address both immediate needs and underlying structural causes of crises, and employing humanitarian food assistance and social protection.
Clearly, a report proposing ways to ensure food security would be incomplete without a focus on gender; women and girls around the world play a primary role in managing the household's food and water, as well as a substantial role in actually growing and selling the food produced. In fact, investing in women is proven to enhance food security.
Where this report falters is in discussing the disproportionate affect crises have on women and girls, without simultaneously centering the value of women's leadership in solving the issue of food insecurity. As community members with crucial expertise in sustainable farming practices, the key role of women in agriculture must be recognized if we are to combat food crises.
In reading the report, it is an important complement to think about the move away from the term "food security" and towards the term "food sovereignty". Food sovereignty is a term coined by the international organization Via Campesina in 1996, and goes beyond the concept of food security in that it promotes the right of all people to not only have access to food, but to exercise agency over what food they eat, how and where it is produced, and by whom.
In addition, food sovereignty confronts neoliberal trade policies that emphasize export, defending instead the right of local populations to their own food, as well as promoting local participation is defining agrarian policies, and acknowledging the rights of women farmers - rights that are too often abused.
For more on the links between food security, food sovereignty, and gender, MADRE's projects in Nicaragua and Sudan offer great examples of how supporting women farmers and backing sustainable, local projects can enhance not only a population's access to food but a population's access to good, sustainable, local, and healthy food.
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