Empowering Women for Sustainable Food Security

Context

The United Nations General Assembly has declared 2026 as the International Year of the Woman Farmer, a landmark recognition of the vital role women play in global agriculture and food security. This declaration underscores the need to address the challenges faced by women farmers and to promote their empowerment as a key strategy for sustainable development, poverty eradication, and nutrition improvement worldwide.

Introduction

Women are pillars of agricultural production in many countries of the world, especially in developing countries, where they produce between 60%-80% of food. In spite of their contributions, women farmers are often faced with structural impediments, including a lack of access to land, credit or markets, and lack of access to technical support. The International Year of the Woman Farmer will build awareness of these barriers to women’s participation in agriculture, incentivizing global efforts to empower women in agriculture, and in turn, secure food for their future, as well as the economy of their rural communities.

The Role of Women in Agriculture and Food Security

• Significant Role in Food and Agriculture: Women are counted in large numbers as agricultural workers across the world. For example, for Asia and the Pacific, the data indicates that 58 percent of women in the labor force are engaged in agriculture. In India, nearly 80 percent of rural women perform some activity in agriculture from growing crops to animal husbandry. Learning from women’s contributions will promote enhanced productivity in agriculture, crop diversification and family nutrition.
• Custodians of Biodiversity and Sustainability: Women in agriculture engage with crop diversity and practice sustainable agricultural practices from the grassroots level. Their traditional knowledge with seed selection and resource use contributes towards soil health, water security and better adaptation to climate change. Women traditional farmers hold an important role to restore progress towards sustainable agriculture or at the very least, a pathway to food security sustainably.
• Socio- Economic Contribution: Women in agriculture contribute to local rural economies as producers, entrepreneurs, and market vendors. In this sense, their contributions develop social networks which contribute to climate resilience in a community sense, demonstrate gender equity in implementation and promote women into a leadership position within agricultural organizations.

Challenges Faced by Women Farmers

• Grass ownership and property rights: Perhaps the most significant problem is the absence of land tenure security. Globally, only 10 to 20% of women have tenure rights to land they grow. In India 86% of women farmers do not own land due to deeply rooted patriarchal norms. This gendered absence of land ownership is a huge limiting factor to accessing institutional credits and government facilitation that can effectively enhance her productivity and allow her to achieve economic independence.
• Access to credit and markets: Women farmers, specifically, experience barriers when accessing financial services and markets. Without collateral, like a land title, they cannot take out loans or credit from a bank. In addition, limited access to market opportunities makes it difficult for them to sell at fair prices and/or grow their agricultural enterprise.
• Education, technology and climate change: Low literacy and limited access to modern day agricultural practices limits women’s productivity levels. Women farmers are severely impacted by climate change; changes in climate unpredictability, loss of natural agricultural resources and marginalization of assets make the challenges more difficult for her to cope with to retain her livelihood.
• Social and cultural challenges: Marginalization of women is deeply rooted in their gender and associated gendered roles that often excludes them from agriculture as decision makers. If they are excluded from the process of agricultural decision making they cannot take leadership roles and/or participate in drafting policies which preserves inequalities.

Global and National Initiatives for Empowerment

• United Nations and FAO Support: The International Year of the Woman Farmer 2026, as per the UN General Assembly and FAO support, allows for an opportunity to foster gender-responsive policies that will close the gender gap by combining social protection programs, an equal resource platform and inclusion of women’s economic value.
• Country-led Activities: Programs made possible through mechanisms like the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP) are rolling out gender-sensitive practices. In Malawi, the Food Systems Transformation Project is working to close the yield gap between male and female farmers; Laos is providing land titles for both women and men to enhance women’s access to credit.
• Government’s Role and Non-gov Organizations: Government and non-government organizations are working to improve women’s uptake of education and technology, as well as, access to financial services. These strategies typically include training opportunities for women, extension services, and support for women-led cooperatives and market linkages.

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