• Women make up 40pc of the global agrifood workforce, nearly equal to men
• In Pakistan, 74pc of working women are engaged in farm sector

ISLAMABAD: The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations has launched ‘International Year of the Woman Farmer 2026’, a global campaign aimed at recognising women’s indispensable yet often overlooked contributions to global agrifood systems and to galvanising efforts to close persistent gender gaps.

Women make up a significant proportion of the world’s agricultural workforce and play a central role across agrifood value chains — from production and processing to distribution and trade — while also ensuring household food security and nutrition. In 2021, agrifood systems employed 40 per cent of working women globally— nearly equal to men.

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

In Pakistan, approximately 74 per cent of women and girls engaged in the labour force work in the agriculture sector, which generates about 40pc of household income. However, protection issues faced by women farmers remain poorly documented and insufficiently addressed.

An FAO report on women farmers in Pakistan highlights the need to amend labour and agriculture policies at the federal and provincial levels to recognise all women performing work related to crops, fruits, vegetables, livestock, fisheries, poultry, dairy, forestry and post-harvest production as “farmers”, whether they work full-time or part-time, including those working on family farms without land ownership.

The report recommends setting a minimum wage for women farmers and ensuring wage parity with male agricultural workers for work of equal value. It also calls for the allocation of unused federal and provincial land to landless rural women farmers, along with access to water and input subsidies to support sustainable livelihoods.

Designated by the UN General Assembly in 2024, the International Year aims to highlight the challenges faced by women farmers and drive policy reforms and investment to advance gender equality, emp­ower women and build more resilient agrifood systems. FAO, in collaboration with the Rome-based UN agencies — the International Fund for Agricultural Develo­pment (IFAD) and the World Food Programme (WFP) — will coordinate activities throughout 2026.

Recent FAO reports, The Status of Women in Agrifood Systems and The Unjust Climate, reveal that women farmers typically cultivate smaller landholdings than men and face a 24pc productivity gap even on farms of equal size. Each day of extreme heat reduces the total value of crops produced by women farmers by three per cent compared to men.

Published in Dawn, January 4th, 2026