FAO Aims to Close Gender Gap In Ensuring Food Security

The Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) urges Worldwide efforts to overcome substantial gender bias limiting women’s contribution to achieving global food security.
FAO highlights persistent gender bias: Women, accounting for 39 per cent of agricultural labour force, face substantial challenges in land ownership, Employment equity, decision-making, and financial access. Urges global action to bolster food security, economic growth, and gender parity in Agriculture.
Meanwhile, the UN food body welcomed the resolution adopted by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly to declare 2026 as International Year of the Woman Farmer, explaining that the resolution, which was proposed by the United States of America and adopted by consensus, invites FAO, in collaboration with the other UN Rome-based Agencies, to facilitate the implementation and observance of the International Year of the Woman Farmer.
It also invited UN Member States, organisations of the United Nations System, other international organisations and stakeholders, including civil society, private sector and academia, to increase awareness of the crucial role that women farmers around the world play in agrifood systems, as well as their contributions to food security, nutrition and poverty eradication.
In this regard, the International Year of the Woman Farmer 2026 would serve as a platform for the adoption of effective policies and actions against the barriers and challenges that women farmers face across agrifood systems, as well as to promote gender equality and the empowerment of all women in agriculture.
The observance will also highlight the vital role of peasant women and other rural women in ensuring the economic survival of their families and contributing to both the rural and national economies.
The move according to FAO, also reaffirmed its commitment to deepen its focus on gender equality and women’s empowerment, which included advocating for policy frameworks that seek to address social norms and structural constraints and utilising gender-transformative approaches to a greater extent in our projects and programming for inclusive rural development.