- Women farmers play a central role in sustaining agrifood systems in Latin America and the Caribbean, yet much of their work remains invisible and undervalued.
- They face significant inequalities in access to land, financing, technology, and decision-making spaces, which limits their productivity and opportunities.
- Strengthening policies and investments that support rural women is essential to building more inclusive, resilient, and sustainable agrifood systems in the region.
Women are at the heart of rural Latin America. They plant crops, care for livestock, preserve seeds, process food, and sustain community networks that make rural life possible. Yet much of their work remains invisible in statistics, markets, and public policy, and they do not have the same access to resources such as land, financing, technology, or training. At the Inter-American Development Bank Group, we work with countries across the region to support rural women, expand their opportunities, and highlight their contribution to the economic development of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC).
The United Nations declared 2026 the International Year of the Woman Farmer to highlight women’s role in rural economies and food security and to promote actions that reduce the inequalities they face. But who are the women who sustain agrifood systems in LAC? Under what conditions do they work, and what are the main challenges they face?
About 670 million people live in LAC, of whom approximately 540 million reside in urban areas and 125 million in rural areas. Around 60 million women live in these rural areas, representing nearly half of the region’s rural population. Of these, 36% participate directly in agricultural activities, dedicating an average of 36 hours per week to the functioning of agrifood systems. In addition, rural women spend between 12% and 25% of their daily time on unpaid care work, equivalent to 20 to 42 additional hours of work per week, while men devote between five and 21 hours to these same tasks.
Rural women are a deeply diverse group: Indigenous and Afro-descendant women, farmers living in territories affected by armed conflict or historically marginalized areas, young women and older adults, and women with diverse sexual orientations. Although their experiences differ, they share structural conditions that limit their economic and social opportunities in rural territories.
When we speak of women agricultural workers, we do not refer only to those who plant or harvest crops. We also include those involved in soil preparation, seed management, livestock care, artisanal fishing, mangrove restoration, food processing, and the commercialization of products in local markets. Others support agricultural work through organizational and community roles. In addition, these women disproportionately assume unpaid rural care work, which is essential for the sustainability of agricultural workers and the functioning of agrifood systems. Despite the central importance of their contributions, women farmers face profound economic, social, and cultural inequalities.
These gaps are reflected in limited access to ownership and control of the means of production, their low participation in decision-making spaces related to land, investments, and productive strategies, and greater vulnerability to extreme events. The result: their farms are, on average, 24% less productive than those managed by men. For example, women own only 20% of land plots, with significant differences across countries—from 8% in Belize and Guatemala to 30% in Chile, Jamaica, and Peru. Their farms also tend to be smaller and located on lower-quality land. In addition, women are concentrated in more informal, less skilled, and lower-paid jobs, while the burden of care work reduces their time for rest, training, and political participation.
Food insecurity also disproportionately affects women across the region. According to FAO data, 34.4% of women experience food insecurity, compared with 27.2% of men, and the gap exceeds nine percentage points in countries such as Guatemala, Honduras, Peru, El Salvador, Argentina, and Suriname. Moreover, the gap between rural and urban areas reached 8.3 percentage points in 2022, compared with 7.3 percentage points globally. The same inequality that limits women’s productivity also threatens their food security.
Across countries in LAC, women participate in multiple agrifood value chains, from the production of staple grains and export crops to food processing and community organization. According to FAOSTAT employment estimates for 2020, the region has more than nine million women working in agriculture and agrifood systems: 4.47 million in the Andean region, 2.32 million in the Southern Cone, 2.19 million in Central America, and more than 70,000 in the Caribbean.
These figures demonstrate their contribution but underestimate much of their work, as they account only for employment recognized as market-based. Essential activities such as subsistence production, care of small livestock, artisanal food processing, and community organization for water management remain excluded, even though they are fundamental to the daily functioning of agrifood systems but invisible in official statistics.
The stories of women farmers across the region reflect the diversity of their work and their impact on rural territories. Some examples help illustrate the scale of this contribution. In Guatemala, indigenous women combine terrace farming with raising small livestock. There they cultivate staple grains and commercial crops such as vegetables, potatoes, and coffee within the ancestral milpa polyculture system, which sustains household nutrition and transmits agricultural knowledge across generations.
In Nicaragua, women farmers migrate to Costa Rica to work long hours in export-oriented agriculture, particularly in pineapple and cassava production. There they face multiple barriers related to poverty and migration status; nevertheless, they perform essential tasks such as weeding, seed selection, planting, fertilization, packaging, and compliance with international standards in value chains that sustain a significant share of the country’s agricultural exports.
In the Andes, women from Indigenous communities preserve and select potato seeds in their gardens, which they later deposit in the Puno Seed Bank in Peru. Their work preserves agricultural biodiversity, strengthens resilience to climate change, and supports food sovereignty. The stewardship of these seeds is closely linked to the preservation of traditional agriculture and the ancestral knowledge of the region.
The work of rural women goes far beyond the farm plot. In Haiti, the Madan Sara—women traders who purchase products from small farmers, transport them under difficult conditions, and negotiate prices in markets—reduce post-harvest losses and ensure the supply of food to towns and cities through solidarity-based economic networks; a critical link between rural producers and markets that rarely receives recognition or social protection.
In Brazil, since 2000, women’s participation in rural movements has been key to transforming the agrarian sector. One example is the Marcha das Margaridas, held every four years in Brasília, which has helped advance policies such as dedicated credit lines for women farmers, programs to strengthen family farming with a focus on women, and joint land titling.
At the IDB, we promote the sustainable and inclusive development of agrifood systems and rural economies in LAC through interventions aimed at reducing inequalities, strengthening the economic autonomy of women agricultural workers, and improving the food and nutrition security of their communities.
The SigTierras project in Ecuador, for example, increased women’s informal land tenure security through cadastral mapping, which translated into higher incomes, greater crop diversification, and improved household food security. In Nicaragua, the APAGRO program financed the acquisition of livestock assets and provided technical assistance to small producers, resulting in greater agricultural production, higher incomes, and increased food consumption.
In Bolivia, the PRONAREC program promoted the participation of women farmers in decision-making within irrigation boards, strengthening their role at the community level. In Haiti, the PTTA/PITAG program found that households with female beneficiaries experienced higher levels of food insecurity, leading to the promotion of technological adoption that helped increase food security, incomes, and the value of agricultural production.
The International Women’s Day and the celebration of 2026 as the International Year of the Woman Farmer offer an opportunity to recognize the role of women in agriculture in LAC. Their work sustains food production, strengthens rural economies, contributes to the well-being of communities, preserves traditional knowledge, and ultimately helps move our region forward.
Recognizing their work is only the first step. Reducing the gaps they face—in access to land, financing, technology, and decision-making spaces—is essential to building more productive, resilient, and inclusive agrifood systems. At the IDB, we will continue supporting initiatives that expand opportunities for rural women and reduce inequalities. Investing in women farmers is investing in the region’s food future.