By Zubeida Mustafa
According to Amartya Sen, people starve not because there is not enough food to feed them but because food is unaffordable. It is also important to note that starvation is not the extreme condition of going without food. It also implies insufficient food intake as to cause malnourishment. If women are given the title to a little land they will grow enough food to feed their family and sell the surplus they produce. Thus they will meet their other needs. The idea is not far-fetched because at present eighty per cent of the work on farms is performed by women in the form of unpaid female labour. It receives no formal recognition. To provide an acre to every woman would call for some kind of land reforms which amounts to asking for the moon in Pakistan today. Hence Green Economics Initiative’s slogan “an acre for every woman” also offers an alternative, “or at least sixteen square feet”. What use will sixteen square feet be for agriculture, one may ask.