Closing the gender gap in agrifood systems can help reduce food insecurity and boost global GDP: FAO gender experts

Rome - The United Nations-designated The International Year of the Woman Farmer (IYWF 2026), shines a spotlight on the essential yet often overlooked roles women play across agrifood systems - from production to trade.

In an interview with FAO Newsroom, Tacko Ndiaye, Gender Team Leader and Mariola Acosta, FAO's Strategic Coordinator of the International Year of the Woman Farmer, discuss why women farmers are central to food security, nutrition and economic resilience, and how FAO plans to raise awareness and drive action to close gender gaps and improve women's livelihoods worldwide.

^{A Maasai woman watering tree saplings. © FAO/Luis Tato}

1. Who is a woman farmer?

The International Year of the Woman Farmer honours all women working in agrifood systems in different capacities across all segments of value chains. This includes women working as family and smallholder farmers, seasonal labourers, fishers and fish workers, pastoralists, foresters, processors, traders, beekeepers, rural entrepreneurs, agricultural scientists, and traditional knowledge holders, in both formal and informal work. The Year celebrates all women in all their diversity, regardless of land ownership or employment status, and reflects the diversity of women's identities, ages, abilities, and social backgrounds.

2. How big of a role do they play in agrifood systems?

Women play a central role in global agrifood systems. Globally, women account for about 41 percent of the agrifood workforce, and agrifood systems are a more important source of livelihood for women than for men in many regions. For example, in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, the majority of working women are engaged in agrifood systems. Women contribute across production, processing, value addition, distribution and trade, and are essential to household food security, nutrition and rural livelihoods, yet much of their work remains undercounted and undervalued.

3. What are the main structural barriers - legal, economic, and social - that limit their productivity, income and decision-making power?

Women farmers face interlinked structural barriers limiting their productivity, income and decision-making power. They often encounter weak legal protection and limited enforcement that restrict women's access to and control over land and natural resources, including discriminatory land tenure and inheritance systems. Economically, women farmers tend to face limited access to credit, inputs, technologies, markets, and financial services. They also face barriers in accessing decent employment as they are more likely to be concentrated in low-paid, informal, part-time, and insecure types of work. Discriminatory social norms restrict women farmers' decision-making power within households and organizations, limit their participation in training and services, including agricultural extension services, and reduce their opportunities to take on leadership roles. The heavy unpaid care and domestic workloads of women farmers, which also stem from discriminatory social norms, reduce the time and energy they can devote to leisure, productive, entrepreneurial, and community engagement activities.

^{Women collecting clams in Tunisia. © FAO/Amine Landoulsi}

4. Why has progress on closing gender gaps in agrifood systems stalled? What needs to be done to reverse this?

Progress on closing gender gaps in agrifood systems has largely stalled over the last decade due to persistent structural inequalities largely driven by entrenched social norms, underinvestment in gender-responsive agrifood policies and programs, slow reform of discriminatory laws, weak implementation and accountability, and insufficient high quality sex-, age- and gender- disaggregated data in agrifood systems, which limits the ability to track progress, identify gaps, and design effective, evidence-based interventions. Crises and stressors including climate change have further intensified women farmers' workloads and vulnerabilities. To reverse this trend, FAO has called for scaled-up and coordinated action towards women's empowerment in agrifood systems, including increased and targeted investments, gender-transformative agrifood policies and programs, better data, meaningful participation of women farmers in decision-making, and sustained political commitment and actions.

5. What are the payoffs to closing the gender gap in agriculture?

Closing gender gaps and empowering women in agrifood systems can enhance the well-being of women and their households, reduce hunger, increase dietary diversity, boost incomes and economies, and strengthen the resilience of populations. For example, reducing gender disparities in employment, education, and income could eliminate 52 percent of the food insecurity gap, while closing gender gaps in farm productivity and wages could raise global gross domestic product by $ 1 trillion and reduce food insecurity for 45 million people.

6. What has been the impact of climate change on rural women, including women farmers?

Climate change negatively impacts rural women. Extreme heat, droughts and erratic rainfall increase women's work burdens and reduce productivity. For example, recent evidence shows that each day of extreme high temperatures reduces the total value of crops produced by women farmers by three percent relative to men. Women's limited access to land, finance, technologies and climate information further constrains their ability to adapt.

^{A beekeeper in Turkey examines a honeycomb frame full of bees. ©FAO/Alkir Turuhan}

7. What risks do agrifood systems face if women farmers continue to be excluded from policies, investments, and leadership spaces?

Women are key contributors to agrifood systems, from production, markets, value addition to distribution, trade and innovation. Excluding women farmers from policies, investments, and leadership thus undermines agricultural productivity and food security, and poses significant risks to economic growth and sustainable rural development. Simply put, without women's insights and contributions, agrifood systems would fail to exploit their full potential. Ultimately, their exclusion leads to ineffective policies that don't address the needs of the entire community and society, diminishing the resilience of agrifood systems overall.

8. How is FAO working to close gender gaps in agrifood systems?

FAO works to reduce gender inequalities in agrifood systems through its efforts on norms and standards, data and information, policy dialogue, capacity development, knowledge and technologies, partnerships, and advocacy and communication. FAO emphasizes the importance of enhancing high-level dialogues and decision-making processes related to food security and nutrition to ensure that issues of gender equality and women's empowerment are properly addressed. FAO is critically advancing these processes through gender-responsive policy making, programming and partnerships, including the rollout of the CFS Voluntary Guidelines on Gender Equality and Women's and Girls' Empowerment in the Context of Food Security and Nutrition (VG-GEWGE), the Commit to Grow Equality initiative, and targeted programmes on land rights, finance, climate resilience and leadership.

South Korean haenyeo, or sea women, prepare their gear early in the morning before going out to harvest sea urchin. ©FAO/David Hogsholt

9. What key actions does FAO have planned for the International Year of the Woman Farmer?

During the International Year of the Woman Farmer 2026, FAO will lead global efforts and events to raise awareness of women farmers' essential roles and the challenges they face, while mobilizing commitment, policy action and investment to close gender gaps in agrifood systems. Key actions will include generating and disseminating evidence and data, promoting gender-responsive laws and policies, strengthening women's participation and leadership in decision-making, and fostering partnerships towards women's empowerment in agrifood systems. These efforts will aim to ensure that women farmers' contributions are recognized, valued and supported well beyond the year itself.

10. How can we ensure that the momentum continues well beyond 2026?

Sustaining the momentum of the International Year of the Woman Farmer will require that long-term commitments are implemented through policies, public and private investments and development programs to empower women farmers globally. This includes continued financing and accountability mechanisms; ensuring that gender equality principles shape agrifood policies and strategies; strengthening the collection, analysis and use of quality gender and sex- and age- disaggregated data; support for women-led organizations; and maintaining global and national partnerships for the empowerment of women farmers beyond 2026. FAO emphasizes that the International Year should serve as a vital catalyst to empower women farmers and close gender gaps in agrifood systems, igniting a transformative movement for global action.