Gender Gap in Agriculture and the ‘South Asian Enigma’

Current data suggests that the global community is far from achieving the 2030 agenda of ending hunger, food insecurity, and malnutrition. By the end of 2019, 650 million people suffered from chronic hunger and 135 million experienced acute food-insecurity. Not all regions are equal: the Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2020 found that some are experiencing less severe incidence of hunger on the GHI scale, compared to others. The most serious levels of hunger are in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. This brief focuses on South Asia. It analyses the factors underlying the so-called ‘South Asian Enigma’—the paradoxical co-existence of hunger and malnutrition amidst economic prosperity—and dissects the disproportionate impacts on women. Attribution: M. Manjula, “Gender Gap in Agriculture and the ‘South Asian Enigma’,” ORF Issue Brief No. 498, October 2021, Observer Research Foundation.

• agriculture
• Gender Equality

Economic Growth and Food Insecurity in South Asia The South Asian region—comprising Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Maldives—has witnessed impressive economic growth in the past few decades. In the ten years beginning 2010, the region’s economy grew at an annual average rate of 6.7 percent which is two times the global average of 3 percent. The Gross National Income (GNI) per capita for the region started peaking from the early 2000s and showed a slight dip only in the year 2020. With an impressive, 7.2 percent growth in 2021, the region is projected to regain its historical growth rate by 2022. [1] The region has also recorded progress on reducing extreme poverty: 216 million people lived below the poverty line in 2015, down to 500 million in 1990. [2] Despite the strong economic growth and reduction in poverty, however, South Asia continues to face various challenges in nutrition. Indeed, Sub-Saharan Africa for instance—a region which not too long ago recorded the worst rates of undernutrition—today fares better than South Asia. Some 255 million people in South Asia are undernourished—the largest number in the world in absolute terms. The region reports the highest acute undernutrition among children, with child wasting rates of 14.9 percent in 2019 compared to 6.9 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa. At 33.2 percent, the region has the highest proportion of children stunted and suffering from chronic undernutrition. [3] , [4] The region also has the highest prevalence of low-birth-weight children.