2026: International Year of the Woman Farmer

2026 has been proclaimed by the United Nations as the International Year of the Woman Farmer (IYWF). The initiative, coordinated by FAO, IFAD and WFP, aims to place the condition of women working in agrifood systems at the centre of international attention. The proposal was created to highlight the role of women in a sector that depends on their labour far more than traditional narratives tend to suggest.

A central yet poorly paid role

The most recent data show a picture in which the centrality of women’s contribution remains linked to conditions of economic disadvantage. Globally, 36% of employed women work in agrifood systems — a share comparable to that of men (38%) — but the quality of their work is deeply unequal: women’s employment is often irregular, informal, part-time, low-skilled or labour-intensive. Women are less present as entrepreneurs or independent farmers and often occupy the role of unpaid family workers. These data come from the report The Status of Women in Agrifood Systems (FAO, 2023), which calculated the average gender pay gap in the agrifood sector: for every dollar earned by a male farmer, a female farmer earns 82 cents.

The economic potential of equality

Sub-Saharan Africa presents an interesting specificity: according to the report The Status of Women in Agrifood Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa, published in April 2026 by FAO, the Natural Resources Institute and AWARD (African Women in Agricultural Research and Development), 76% of working women in the region are employed in agrifood systems — the highest share in the world. In rural areas, women farmers are the main actors in off-farm work, namely the stages of food processing, packaging and distribution, segments in which their presence has grown significantly (from 21% to 29% between 2005 and 2022).
Gender inequalities have a cost that can be quantified: the FAO Report estimates that closing the agricultural productivity gap (and the wage gap) would lead to an increase in global GDP of almost one trillion dollars and would reduce the number of people experiencing food insecurity by 45 million.

Eradicating inequality

The 2023 FAO report also describes the strong determination of women farmers to adapt to the structural failures of the system in which they operate. An interesting observation is that of Clara Park, researcher and co-author of the regional report on Sub-Saharan Africa: “Individual resilience cannot take on what is the responsibility of institutions.”
Gender inequality, in the agrifood sector and in any other form and context, cannot be conceived merely as a set of alarming indicators and statistics, nor even as a collection of present-day injustices; it consists of structures that are deeply rooted and sedimented over time, that cut across different communities and become “everyone’s issues”, concerning men as much as political institutions.
FAO outlines an action plan structured around three directions to combat inequality in the agrifood sector: gender-transformative approaches must be adopted, challenging discriminatory social norms; social protection must be strengthened for both formal and informal workers; and, finally, stronger legal frameworks must be built to sanction labour precarity and prevent violence within agrifood value chains.
The International Year of the Woman Farmer remains a symbolic initiative, offering an opportunity to consolidate this awareness into concrete action. As stated by Beth Bechdol, FAO Deputy Director-General, the year is not a celebration, but an invitation to do more and better.