The United Nations declared 2026 the International Year of the Woman Farmer (IYWF 2026) to spotlight the essential roles women play across agrifood systems.
This was an opportunity to reframe gender equality in agriculture as an economic and food security imperative rather than just a social issue.
“The International Year of the Woman Farmer is a crucial opportunity to raise awareness of just how important women are to global food security,” said Natasha Hayward, Program Manager for the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP).
She highlighted finance as an example of how female farmers and agribusiness entrepreneurs are often left out, cut off from even basic services like having a bank account.
“Land rights can restrict their ability to secure credit, insurance and other services. And even when they do have access, financial products are often not designed to meet women’s needs, who typically require small amounts of credit initially to invest in small-scale operations – albeit they may have more ambitious longer-term plans.”
She added: “Put simply, women are often farming with one hand tied behind their backs compared to their male counterparts.”
The inequality faced by women has significant implications for food systems. Rural women produce up to 80% of food in low-income countries and evidence suggests that equal access to productive resources could increase farm yields.
“Empowering women farmers is good for food supplies as well as incomes and livelihoods, human and social development and economic growth. Ensuring women have equal access to resources could increase farm yields by up to 30 per cent, reducing the number of hungry people in the world by up to 17 per cent,” said Hayward.
“Evidence also suggests that women are more likely to prioritise their family’s nutrition in making production choices and to reinvest their earnings into household food security and education, which compounds the benefits of closing the agricultural gender gap.”
An uneven playing field
Women in agriculture face set after set of constraints, forcing them to operate at a structural disadvantage to men.
These include unequal land rights, limited access to agricultural inputs and extension services, disproportionate unpaid care and domestic responsibilities, restrictive social norms that reduce women’s decision-making power and control over income, and weaker market access due to mobility and transport constraints.
As a result, female-managed farms are 24% less productive on average.
“The gender gap in agriculture can be more visible in settings where women play a significant – and sometimes overlooked – role in food production, processing and marketing. This covers many countries, including those on the African continent, where women make up more than two thirds of the agrifood workforce,” said Hayward.
Policymakers also face a lack of sex-disaggregated data, which hampers accurate diagnosis of gender gaps and the design of effective interventions.
Hayword emphasised that the inequality can be challenging to address, as it is often embedded in deeply entrenched social and cultural norms,
“Achieving greater equity in agriculture means not only ensuring women have access to the same resources but also creating the conditions in which they are able to make full use of them. This can mean that efforts to empower women farmers must also focus on men and overcoming traditional views about the role of women and may include practical attention to related aspects such as the ‘burden’ of family care taken on by women, limiting their time for other activities.”
Empowering women in farming
GAFSP positions women’s empowerment as central to agricultural development and food security.
“GAFSP recognises that empowering women is fundamental to agricultural development and food security. In our projects and investments, our projects conduct analysis at the design stage to understand the specific barriers facing women and design appropriate actions to address these inequalities, such as prioritizing women’s leadership of producer organizations, promoting access to finance, and targeting access to inputs,” said Hayward.
GAFSP operates as a donor coordination platform targeting hard-to-reach countries and markets, with a holistic approach that integrates support for marginalised groups including women and youth.
More than 40 percent of GAFSP beneficiaries are women. Additionally, over 80 per cent of its country-led projects meet the World Bank Gender Tag standard, indicating that they include rigorous gender analysis, targeted interventions, and measurable indicators to address gender disparities.
Its programmes have also engaged men to be part of the solution.
“GAFSP has invested U$20 million in a project to support climate-resilient, diversified agriculture for 420,000 farmers in climate hotspots in Bangladesh. This includes focused training for women and sensitising men to the added value of women within the household through innovative gender-centered training adapted from Gender Action Learning System (GALS).”
