Gender and Household Food Security: A case for Kalulushi District, Zambia

In November 2000, the Zambian government devised the Food Security Pack as a social protection measure targeting vulnerable farming households with agricultural inputs to promote food security, crop diversification and livelihood activities in all the 72 districts. Using the asset-vulnerability framework and a sample population of thirty-one households, this study analysed the gendered implications of FSP in Chembe ward of Kalulushi district for 2007/2008 farm-ing season. Through household surveys and semi-structured interviews, the study revealed that despite female headed households comprising majority of beneficiaries, these did not experience long term improvements in food pro-duction. In addition, male headed households were more likely to grow differ-ent crops compared to women headed units. Lastly, involvement in livelihood activities aside agriculture was very low among females in comparison to males who reported natural resource-oriented activities and small businesses as alter-native sources of livelihood. Lack of improvements in food production, low levels of crop diversification and livelihood activities could be attributed to in-sufficient assets, different needs and forms of vulnerabilities among male and female headed units. The paper concludes by emphasising that the design of such poverty re-duction measures requires a transformative perspective to address structural inequalities that perpetuate and sustain social injustices in addition to gender-specific needs and constraints. Additionally, it‟s important to consider citizen-ship-based entitlements aside agricultural assistance in order to be responsive to the needs of incapacitated households.