MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

FAO officially launches 2026 as the International Year of the Women Farmer

In the Falklands a woman shearer with her tidy accomplishment

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) officially launched The International Year of the Woman Farmer 2026, a global campaign aimed at recognizing women’s indispensable yet often overlooked contributions to global agri-food systems and to galvanize efforts to close persistent gender gaps.

Designated by the UN General Assembly in 2024, the International Year aims to spotlight the realities faced by women farmers and drive policy reforms and investment to advance gender equality, empower women, and build more resilient agri-food systems. FAO, together with the other Rome-based UN agencies – the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the World Food Program (WFP) - will coordinate activities throughout 2026.

Women make up a significant share of the world’s agricultural workforce and are indispensable across agri-food value chains — from production and processing to distribution and trade — playing a central role in household food security and nutrition. In 2021 agri-food systems employed 40% of working women globally - nearly equal to men.

Despite this, women’s contributions remain undervalued and their working conditions are often more precarious: irregular, informal, part-time, low-paid, labor-intensive, and highly vulnerable. They continue to face systemic barriers, including limited access to land, finance, technologies, education, extension services, and participation in decision-making at all levels.

FAO Chief Economist Maximo Torero, warned that progress on women’s empowerment in agri-food systems has stalled over the past decade.

“The cost of inaction is enormous. We know from recent estimates that closing the gaps between men and women in agriculture could raise global GDP by one trillion dollars and reduce food insecurity for 45 million people,” he said.

He stressed that the observance goes far beyond celebration, calling for “bringing policy attention to the multidimensional challenges they (women farmers) face, and promoting legal reforms and policy and programmatic action that allow women to have equal land rights, equal access to finance, to technology, to extension services, to markets, and to decision-making.”

FAO Deputy Director-General Beth Bechdol emphasized that the needs of women farmers must remain a priority well beyond 2026.

“Throughout 2026, the International Year will move from today’s sharing of personal stories and discussions to practical work — national policies, community partnerships, research, investment, and dialogue between farmers, cooperatives, governments, finance institutions, youth networks, and universities. The goal is simple: turn commitment into practice, and practice into measurable impact,” she said.