WUNRN
ARROW - Asian-Pacific Resource &
Research Centre for Women
LINKING WOMEN & POVERTY, FOOD
SOVEREIGNTY & SECURITY, & SEXUAL & REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH & RIGHTS
Direct Link to Full 36-Page 2014
ARROW Text: http://www.arrow.org.my/uploads/20140616121147_v20n1.pdf
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Linking poverty and food (in)security. The four pillars for food security are availability, access, utilisation,
and stability. This means that all people at all times have physical and
economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary
needs and food preferences for an active healthy life.7 The links between poverty and food
insecurity are also straightforward. A poor individual is less likely to have
access to adequate food, especially when food has to be purchased. Even when
food is cultivated, because food needs to be sold in the market, poor landless farmers,
tend to be food and nutrition insecure.This phenomenon has been exacerbated
with the corporatisation of the agriculture sector, where the farmers are
losing their lands to corporations, have less access and control over their
seeds, are forced to mono-crop and have to switch from food crops to cash
crops. Dumping of subsidised and poor quality food in developing countries also
affects rural farmers. Women farmers (who are not even counted as farmers)
often bear the greatest brunt because of lack of access to vital resources that
enable them to farm, and to have to bear the additional burden of reproduction
and caregiving. Food security encompasses nutrition security. A food secure,
non-poor person may still have nutritionally inadequate caloric intake as for
various reasons they may not consume adequate or appropriate food. Despite
living in times of food surplus, an estimated 870 million people, accounting to
one in eight, suffer from chronic undernourishment. .
