FAO Launches International Year of the Woman Farmer in Rome

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations officially launched the International Year of the Woman Farmer 2026 today with an opening ceremony live from FAO Headquarters in Rome and online. Held during the 179th Session of the FAO Council, the event officially kicks off the United Nations observance and is intended to set the stage for global action in 2026.

The United Nations declared 2026 the International Year of the Woman Farmer to spotlight the essential roles women play across agrifood systems — from production to trade — while often going unrecognized. Women farmers are central to food security, nutrition, and economic resilience. IYWF 2026 aims to raise awareness and promote actions to close gender gaps and improve women’s livelihoods worldwide.

“We celebrate women sustaining agri-food systems in all of their diversity,” said Dr. Máximo Torero Cullen, chief economics for FAO during the opening ceremony. “Progress on women’s empowerment in food systems has largely stalled in the last decade. Women have continued to own, and earn less, they work more hours, often under harsher conditions, with fewer protections.” 

FAO defines women farmers broadly as women working in agrifood systems across all segments of value chains. This includes farmers, producers, peasants, family and smallholder farmers, seasonal laborers, fishers, fish workers, beekeepers, pastoralists, foresters, processors, traders, traditional knowledge holders, women in agricultural sciences, formal and informal workers, and rural entrepreneurs. The definition includes women in all their diversity, including young and older women, Indigenous women and women in local communities, women with disabilities, refugee and displaced women, and others — recognizing contributions regardless of land ownership or employment status.

According to the most recent Census of Agriculture in the U.S., women in agriculture saw a slight decline in representation within the farming and ranching industries, even as the census has made strides to show them as having a greater role on family operations.

The International Year of the Woman Farmer 2026 aims to raise awareness of women’s roles in agrifood systems and the challenges they face, including land tenure, financial and technical constraints, and limited access to services and education. It also seeks to encourage policies and investments that empower women in agrifood systems, and to promote greater synergies among international initiatives supporting women farmers.

IYWF materials highlight the scale of gender gaps and the potential gains from closing them, including: women making up 41 percent of the global agrifood workforce (2021), a 24 percent gender gap in land productivity even on farms of similar size; women earning 78 cents for every dollar that men earn in agrifood wage employment, and the burden of unpaid care work, which contributes at least $10.8 trillion annually to the global economy.

As FAO launches the Year, Heifer International says it will showcase the daily realities of women farmers throughout 2026 in countries where it works. Surita Sandosham, President and CEO of Heifer International, said: “Empowering women farmers is one of the most powerful levers available for improving household incomes, nutrition and resilience.

“We know from experience that when women have access to training, finance and peer-to-peer support, their whole community benefits. We cannot break the cycle of hunger and poverty without first ending gender inequality.

“The International Year of the Woman Farmer is an important opportunity to recognize the essential contributions of women to global food security. But it must also acknowledge the barriers that continue to hold women, and their communities, back.

“By uplifting the voices of women, Heifer International hopes to raise awareness of the urgent need to close the gender gap and invest in women’s empowerment — for everyone’s benefit.”

FAO, in collaboration with the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and Ireland, is hosting the launch on the sidelines of the FAO Council to mark the official start of the observance and raise awareness of women farmers’ crucial roles in agrifood systems and their contributions to food security, nutrition, and poverty eradication.