To mark the International Year of the Women Farmer, we are highlighting the vital role women play in our food production.
Women farmers play a vital role in feeding their communities. Yet unequal access to land, credit and other resources continues to hold many of them back. At the same time, they carry most unpaid care work, leaving less time and fewer opportunities to develop their livelihoods.
Through this interactive Snakes and Ladders game, you’ll experience some of the barriers women farmers face and meet three women from SWISSAID projects.
Prefer to play offline? Download the printable version here.
Women feed the world: they are responsible for up to 80% of our food supply. Women cultivate fields, produce and preserve seeds, protect ecosystems and sell the harvest at the market. They often do all this alongside domestic duties and raising children – yet they are frequently denied access to resources, knowledge and a political voice. One striking example: only 15 per cent of all people worldwide who hold land rights are women.
The latest UN report on food crises shows: hunger is on the rise and affecting an increasing number of countries. There is no way around it if we are to reverse this negative trend: women farmers must be given fair access to resources, land and knowledge. If this were to happen, women could lift a further 150 million people out of hunger.
SWISSAID works on the ground to eliminate this systemic inequality in agriculture. In our projects, we focus on agroecology, an approach that aims to achieve a socially and environmentally sustainable agriculture.
Production costs are low with agroecology. It also protects the environment, delivers stable yields in the long term and is relatively simple to learn – making it an accessible, low-risk and affordable way for women farmers to secure food for their families, achieve economic autonomy and participate in their communities.
In 2022, 2024, and 2026, the Sufosec Alliance—of which SWISSAID is a member—published reports demonstrating the effectiveness of agroecological methods for farming families in its project areas. Learn more.
Together with local partner organisations, we strengthen women farmers’ knowledge of sustainable agriculture, organise courses on agroecological methods or bookkeeping skills, and support women’s networks so they can connect with each other.
Find out more below through the women we work with by clicking on the relevant country.
