09 Feb Gendering Food Security: Dairy Policy, Food Security and the Pastoralists of Gujarat, India

Yesterday I had the pleasure of participating in a workshop on gender and food security at Warwick University. The event was co-hosted by the Centre for the Study of Women and Gender and Warwick Global Research Priorities: Food Security.
The three other presentations were excellent and the roundtable that followed was really engaging.
I am posting my presentation here: Women Pastoralists,Food Security, and the White Revolution (click to view)
I felt that I failed to get the key points of my talk across. Specifically:
– Development projects are very complex and often when there are winners, there are also losers.
– Operation Flood (creating grid of farmer-led cooperative dairy collection points and distribution networks) is a very interesting example of development. Lessons can be learned from this BUT the context is very important.
– Pastoralists have been excluded from dairy policy in India and the emerging policies and programmes will further exclude them.
– The commodification of milk through the white revolution (evolution of India’s dairy policy) has meant that many women are opting to sell their milk rather than drink it, and this has negative impacts on their nutrition security
– Food security is one way of looking at things, but it is limited.