• Super Admin
• 08 Mar, 2026

March 8, International Women's Day - In the framework of FAO's International Year of the Woman Farmer, Slow Food gives voice to women across Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America to spotlight a fundamental truth: women are the backbone of agrifood systems worldwide, even though their work remains undervalued, underpaid, and too often invisible. "Women are not 'helpers' in agriculture. As we see in our Slow Food Farms around the world, they are farmers, processors, entrepreneurs, seed guardians, and community leaders," says Dalí Nolasco Cruz, Slow Food Board member. "Recognizing their rights, especially secure access to land, is the most transformative action we can take for global food security. If women stopped farming tomorrow, the world would stop eating. It is time for institutions to move from symbolic celebration to structural change." Agrifood systems are among the largest sources of employment for women globally. According to FAO's report The Status of Women in Agrifood Systems, 36% of working women worldwide were employed in agrifood systems in 2019, compared with 38% of men. In sub-Saharan Africa, 66% of women's employment is in agrifood systems (compared with 60% of men). In Southern Asia, the gap is even more pronounced: 71% of women in the labour force work in agrifood systems, versus 47% of men. Despite their central role, women's work is more likely to be informal, irregular, labour-intensive and poorly paid. Much of it is not even formally recognized as work. Across continents, the answer is clear: secure land rights for women. From Togo to Greece, from Malawi to Iran, from Cameroon to Burundi to Pakistan, women identify land ownership as the cornerstone of economic independence, climate resilience, productivity, and dignity. Limited access to land is compounded by restricted participation in specialized training, limited access to credit and technology, and underrepresentation in decision-making bodies and cooperatives. Women-led cooperatives, social farms and short supply chains are emerging as important tools to strengthen both economic autonomy and social recognition, but structural barriers remain. Fatima Maleki, farmer at Reza Slow Food Farm in Iran, explains: "Women's labor is essential, but land and financial decisions are often registered in men's names. This limits women's access to bank loans, equipment, and specialized training. Many support programs do not formally recognize small-scale women farmers. These structural barriers prevent women's true capacity in food production from being fully acknowledged." From Bangladesh, Mahfuza Khatun of the Monoharpur Native Producer Farmers Slow Food Community adds: "Rural women constitute 58% of the agricultural workforce in Bangladesh. Yet strict patriarchal norms, mobility restrictions, and limited inheritance rights restrict access to land, credit, inputs, and technology. Without collateral and with male-centric extension services, women are confined to small-scale, lower-productivity activities, limiting their potential and the overall productivity of the sector." Across regions, the message is consistent: without secure land tenure and equal access to resources, women remain central to production but excluded from power. Women are at the heart of household food security. They manage gardens, diversify diets, preserve seasonal harvests and educate children about nutrition. "Women are central to all four pillars of food security: availability, access, utilization and stability. Without them, food security would collapse," says Langsi Yeloma Ruth, environmentalist and coordinator for Slow Food Indigenous Peoples in Cameroon. Beyond the household, women are also guardians of biodiversity and agroecological knowledge. They conserve local seed varieties, practice composting and sustainable beekeeping, and transmit traditional processing and culinary skills that strengthen climate resilience. "Women are guardians of traditional seeds, indigenous recipes, and sustainable farming practices. They preserve local crop varieties and use environmentally friendly methods passed down through generations, which supports biodiversity and resilience", adds Afshan Altaf from the Potohar Slow Food Community in Pakistan. Across Nigeria, Iran and many other regions, women preserve crop diversity and food traditions increasingly threatened by climate change, land degradation and industrial food systems. As Sahadatu Saana from the Akkuffokrom Slow Food Convivium in Ghana notes: "Producing food is only one part of a food system. Women plan balanced meals with limited resources, adapt during shortages, and prioritize children, the elderly and the sick. This determines whether food becomes healthy nutrition. Without this role, food availability does not automatically translate into food security." "Women are custodians of traditional food knowledge. Our understanding of local foods, medicinal plants and sustainable practices is too often dismissed, yet it is fundamental to building healthy, resilient and culturally rooted food systems for future generations", adds Wendy Gómez, coordinator of the Slow Food Farm Casa Huerto Buena Vista in Peru. Yet the hours spent processing harvests, preparing meals, preserving food and passing down knowledge remain largely unpaid and unrecognized. Across continents, women transform harvests into food and food into livelihoods. In Togo, Ghana, and across sub-Saharan Africa, women mill millet, sorghum, and maize; produce shea butter, preserve vegetables, fish, and meat; and manage agro-processing units producing juices, flours, and oils. "Women play a very important role in their homes, as they are responsible for transforming their family's food into delicious dishes that help them maintain good health. This is a great responsibility for women today, given the crisis our country is currently experiencing, in addition to the severe drought", comments Maricé Perez Caro from the Slow Food Farm Ilusión Guajira in Cuba. In Greece, Lilian Kouidou of The Chilli Factor Organic Slow Food Farm highlights the cultural dimension of this labour: "In rural Greece, women are not just farmers. They cultivate, harvest, package, manage accounts, cook, organize logistics, and sell. Generational renewal is not only about farms surviving, it is about food traditions surviving." Women are highly present in local markets, selling vegetables, grains, fruits, honey, and prepared foods. In Burundi, they dominate municipal markets; in Nigeria, some even trade across borders. Yet access to regional and international markets remains constrained by certification requirements, infrastructure gaps, and limited financial autonomy. Empowering women in agrifood systems is not only a matter of gender equality. It is essential to reducing hunger, increasing incomes and strengthening resilience in the face of climate and economic crises. Slow Food calls for concrete structural reforms, including secure land rights for women, equal access to credit, insurance, inputs and technology, recognition of unpaid care and post-harvest labour, support for women-led agroecology and biodiversity protection, and equal participation in cooperatives and decision-making bodies. On this International Women's Day, Slow Food urges governments, financial institutions, and international organizations to translate recognition into enforceable rights and to ensure that women farmers are no longer invisible pillars, but acknowledged leaders of the world's food systems. Source: https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO2603/S00075/women-feed-the-planet-but-who-feeds-their-rights.htm