The current food crisis is yet another reminder of the feminisation of poverty. Women produce most of the food in poor countries, yet they have less access to seed, fertilisers and extension services. They are also the most hungry -- about seventy per cent of the people who do not have access to enough food are women and girls. Women form the bulk of the working poor -- they toil long hours without reaping enough to enable them to climb out of the dollar-a-day absolute poverty bracket. In some countries women widowed by HIV and AIDS are routinely disinherited, and in these and many other countries women's lower cultural or legal status means that they do not own the land they till. The food crisis has inevitably taken a greater toll on women, and consequently the well-being of whole communities is affected.

Some of the grim statistics are as follows [1]:

- Food prices have risen 55 percent from June 2007 to February 2008, including an 87 percent increase in the cost of rice in March.

- Households in developing countries spend an average of 70 percent of their incomes on food, compared to the 15 to 18 percent that households spend in industrialized countries.

- Even before the food crisis hit, an estimated 7 out of 10 of the world's hungry were women and girls.

- Rural women alone produce half of the world's food and 60% to 80% of the food in most developing countries, but receive less than 10% of credit provided to farmers.