ABSTRACT
There is also a popular assumption that women prefer to cultivate food crops. Examples such as those above, as well as those from other regions such as parts of sub-Saharan Africa where women are successfully cultivating commercial crops like cocoa, indicate that this is a misplaced assumption.15 Food security does not necessarily need food self-sufficiency at the local or household level. Landless rural dwellers and most urban dwellers buy food and have no means to grow their own. For them, a living wage is what matters for food security. Moreover, nutritional health depends not only on the quantity of foodgrains consumed and their diversity, but also on other nutritious food items, which cannot all be grown for self-consumption, as well as access to adequate and clean cooking fuel, clean water, sanitation, etc.
