Women's role in household food security in rural Sri Lanka

Abstract

Food security is a major development issue which has been prioritised in domestic economic policies of many developing countries. Recently, there is an increasing trend of directing food security policies towards empowering women, because, many studies have revealed that women play a significant role in reducing poverty and food insecurity in their households. However, there is a dearth of studies that discusses the women's role in achieving household food security in the context of Sri Lanka, even though women are culturally assigned a huge responsibility in almost all the household tasks including household food management. Hence, this study attempted to analyze the women's role in household food security in Sri Lanka in the rural context. The primary data was gathered from a cross sectional sample survey in Thirappane division in the Anuradhapura district, and the data was collected from 100 households which were selected based on simple random sampling method. To achieve the objectives, both descriptive and econometric methods were used in the data analysis. The study found that women play a strong role in assuring household food security in all three dimensions of food security; they make a significant contribution to farming and thereby household food availability, their contribution to income is crucial in household food access especially in low income households, and their nutritional knowledge is also important inthe proper utilization of food in households. Furthermore, the study estimated a regression model using ordinary least square (OLS) method and could identify that women's income, their nutritional knowledge, and their use of indigenous food management knowledge as important determinants of household food security in rural households. Accordingly, the results suggested that the food security policies in the country should be aimed at empowering women's capacities through income and education to yield better outcomes.