Food


Chapter 1 GLOBAL GENDER AND ENVIRONMENT OUTLOOK Chapter 4: Water


Box 2.1.3. Subsistence farming and fishery tasks are essential to many households’ livelihoods Energy


Subsistence agricultural and fishery workers grow and harvest field or tree and shrub crops, grow vegetables and fruit, gather wild fruits, medicinal and other plants, tend or hunt animals, catch fish, and gather various forms of aquatic life in order to provide food, shelter and a minimum of cash income for themselves and their households. Tasks include:


Chapter 2 •


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• preparing the soil, sowing, planting, tending and harvesting field crops; growing vegetables, fruit and other tree and shrub crops; gathering wild fruits, medicinal and other plants;


tending, feeding or hunting animals mainly to obtain meat, milk, hair, skin or other products; fetching water and gathering firewood;


catching fish and gathering other forms of aquatic life; storing or carrying out some basic processing of their produce;


building shelters and making tools, clothes and utensils for use by the household; selling some products at local markets; performing related tasks.


Source: ISCO (2004)


In a number of countries there is a significant disparity between the share of agricultural land holders who are female and the share of women who are heads of rural households (Figure 2.1.1).


Assessments of gender equality need to include evaluations of the qualitative aspects of land ownership. Evidence from South Asia suggests that even when women own land, the plots they are allocated are often smaller and less fertile than those belonging to men (Rao 2011). Inheritance laws can have a direct impact on land ownership. By determining who will have access to land, or whether land being used by individuals will legally continue to be used by them, inheritance laws (and procedures for implementing these laws) may either stabilize families or produce conflict. Divorced and widowed women and orphaned children are particularly vulnerable to being evicted from land on which they depend for their survival (Rafia 2014; Habib 2013; Budlender and Alma 2011; Izumi 2007).


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When land is in the hands of women, their decision- making capacity and livelihoods are improved, which is likely to have a positive impact on the health and well-being of their children (Paris et al. 2015). The consequences for women farmers of lacking security of land tenure include inefficient land use (resulting in lower yields) and reduced access to credit and to external inputs (World Bank 2011).


Gender and agricultural irrigation: Infrastructure to irrigate, store, and direct water to meet food-production needs is essential for most agricultural systems in the world. It may become even more important as a way to increase resilience against climate variability and climate change. However, the current management of and access to irrigation water are not equally distributed between men and women.


Larger-scale and publically funded systems are almost universally controlled by men and favor male farmers. In some countries this reflects a colonial legacy: as documented in Latin America (Boelens and Bustamante 2007; Vera Delgado 2011), Africa (Rogers 1981; Van Koppen et al. 2006), and South Asia (Zwarteveen 2008), this was justified by an ideology of male heads of households and providers occupying the public sphere, while women were domesticated as housewives in the private sphere. In decolonizing, most newly- independent government irrigation departments largely continued this. Women were discriminated against in the allocation of irrigable land, in membership of water user associations, and they were excluded from technical training to construct, operate and maintain infrastructure. Men were also the sole beneficiaries of other agricultural support provided in irrigated areas, such as training, credit schemes, inputs, and markets (Merrey and Baviskar eds. 1997). Even when land ownership is formally the key criterion for membership in water user associations and irrigation committees, women land


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