“When a woman has assets, it impacts more directly on the access to nutrition for all members of the family than when only the man has assets.”

India’s Congress Party president, Sonia Gandhi, has recently called for a constitutional right to food, according to this article in the New York Times (“India Asks: Should Food be a Right for the Poor?”). She also advocates expanding the existing food entitlement program, to ensure that each family “would qualify for a monthly 77-pound bag of grain, sugar and kerosene.”

The statement that forms the title of this post comes from Nobel Conference speaker Bina Agarwal, who is quoted in an opinion piece on the gendered dimension of hunger in India. The piece, which appears on the website for One World South Asia, is by Pamela Philipose, who argues that “Women should form the nucleus of any food security programme in India….” She argues that it is “imperative for the upcoming programmes to be implemented keeping in mind the nutritional needs of women.”