With the United Nations’ recent declaration of 2026 as the International Year of the Woman Farmer, the time is ripe for reconsidering historical and contemporary roles of women in agriculture. Perhaps most crucially, we must acknowledge the significant contributions of women to the development of sustainable agrifood systems, the achievement of food security, improved nutrition, and the eradication of poverty. However, despite the centrality of their role in agriculture, women face a persistent gender gap that exists in terms of accessing land, property ownership, financial assistance, training, and extension services. We need to address this gap in order to achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals in a timely manner.
Women have been instrumental in the establishment, development, and subsistence of human societies since the dawn of agriculture during the Neolithic period, approximately 10,000 years ago. Recent anthropological studies have revealed that prehistoric women often took the bulk of work associated with cereal processing, as evidenced by skeletal changes consistent with a kneeling posture. Skeletal remains show that women tucked their toes up under their feet and used this position to help them propel the forward stroke on a quern, or primitive hand mill. Moreover, a subset of women appear to have specialized in fiber production, indicated by the presence of distinctive grooves on their teeth and enlarged mandibular joint surfaces. In addition, high levels of upper-limb loading among prehistoric agricultural women, compared to that of both living female athletes (including semi-elite rowers) and controls, indicates behaviors associated with the intensification of agriculture and with intensive and repetitive manual labor, such as grain grinding. In more recent history, when food shortages became critical for Allied nations during the First and Second World Wars, women stepped up to fill the void left by men who headed off to the battlefield. Women (at least 3 million in the United States), readily volunteered to work on rural farms and urban gardens, contributing significantly to food production, in what came to be known as Women’s Land Armies. These women played a pivotal role in shaping a new political and social culture focused on the production and distribution of food.
Today, women constitute a significant portion of the agricultural labor force worldwide, particularly in developing countries. However, a significant gender gap persists in farm productivity and wages. Closing this gender gap could increase global gross domestic product by 1% (or nearly USD 1 trillion) and reduce global food insecurity by 2 percentage points, decreasing the number of food-insecure people by 45 million.
Research demonstrates that empowering women in agriculture has far-reaching benefits. When women’s productivity and incomes increase, their families and communities also experience positive outcomes. For example, women tend to invest a larger fraction of their earnings in their children’s health and nutrition, laying a strong foundation for their children’s lifelong cognitive and physical development.
The UN, in designating 2026 as the International Year of the Woman Farmer, highlights the critical role that women play in the economic survival of their families and communities, while pointing out that they “are often denied tenure and ownership of land, equal access to land, productive resources, financial services, information, employment or social protection, and are often victims of violence and discrimination in a variety of forms and manifestations.” Addressing these challenges will bolster food security, nutrition, and economic growth at local, national, and global levels.
Women hold an indispensable place in the history of agriculture and play invaluable roles in contemporary farming. To ensure sustainable agrifood systems and to achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, we must empower women in rural areas and promote gender equality in agriculture. By investing in women’s empowerment, we can create a more equitable and resilient agricultural sector and therefore adapt better to the effects of climate change and contribute to food security and to the resilience of agrifood systems.
Mariana Garcia-Ascolani is originally from Paraguay. She graduated as an Agricultural Engineer from the Universidad Nacional de Asunción in Paraguay. She conducted both her master’s degree and PhD studies in Animal Sciences at the University of Florida. Garcia-Ascolani is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Oklahoma State University. She specializes in the mitigation of enteric methane emissions from beef cattle and in the development and application of nutritional and management strategies to improve sustainable beef production.
This article was originally published in AWIS Magazine. Join AWIS to access the full issue of AWIS Magazine and more member benefits.