International Year of the Woman Farmer 2026: A Vision for Global Equity

By TechnoServe

In celebration of International Women’s Day and International Year of the Woman Farmer, we sat down with two TechnoServe leaders to discuss the critical challenges women farmers face, what TechnoServe is doing to address them, and what gives them hope for the years ahead.

Cristina Manfre is TechnoServe’s senior director of the Global Practice for Women and Youth. Maria da Luz Quinhentos is a women and youth manager at TechnoServe.

The Vital Role of Women in Global Agrifood Systems

1. This International Women’s Day coincides with the UN’s International Year of the Woman Farmer. What does this moment mean for TechnoServe, and what tangible changes do you want to see this year?

Cristina: With International Women’s Day coinciding with the United Nations’ International Year of the Woman Farmer, we have the opportunity to highlight the roles women play in agrifood systems. The year is celebrating women, not just as farmers in the traditional sense, but in the various ways they participate in securing fair, healthy, and sustainable agrifood systems as producers, processors, traders, and retailers.

At TechnoServe, we recognize the importance of reaching women farmers. In 2025, we were thrilled to celebrate reaching one million coffee farmers trained, of whom 40% were women. This achievement represents many intentional shifts in how we do our work: inviting women directly to training, setting targets, and engaging both women and men in discussions about roles and responsibilities.

We repeatedly see that when you make shifts that facilitate women’s participation, it’s not just women who participate more fully, but men as well. Women’s increased participation does not come at the expense of others; it presents opportunities to transform systems to benefit all people over the long term.

We look forward to celebrating the achievements of women farmers in 2026, but we are most looking forward to partnering with them, with agribusinesses, and with the private sector and donors. Together, we must ensure that investments address gaps in women’s access to resources and markets and drive outcomes that improve the well-being of women and their households. Ultimately, this will drive progress in transforming agrifood systems that benefit all people.

Addressing Challenges and Opportunities for Women in Agriculture

2. Based on your work in Mozambique, what are the most significant barriers women farmers face? How does TechnoServe’s approach specifically address these challenges?

Maria: It is important to note that in Mozambique, women are very involved in agriculture and perform the majority of the agricultural work, but they face specific barriers that men do not, which limit their economic opportunities. In the Mangwana program, women are the primary focus of the program activities. The most significant barriers women face go beyond technical farming skills and are more structural and social. 

We tackle specific barriers that include:

• Limited Access to Resources: Women often have limited access to resources. They do not have secure access to the land they work on because it is often registered in a male relative’s name. They also have limited ownership of productive assets.
• Access to Financial Services and Markets: Women often have less access to inputs, credits, and networks. They have lower education or literacy, which keeps them at a low-income, subsistence level.
• Limited Access to Technical Information and Training: Most agricultural extension services target men as household heads and farm owners, thereby limiting women’s access to improved agricultural techniques and training.
• Limited Participation in Decision-Making: While women contribute significantly to agricultural production, they have limited influence over how resources and income are used. Social norms often assign women the majority of unpaid care work. 
• Division of Labor: Women shoulder most of the household care and responsibilities, including cooking, caring for children and the elderly, and cleaning, which reduces their time and mobility to attend training and meetings.

At TechnoServe, we use a household approach, working with women and men, with an emphasis on couples. We register and invite both of them to agricultural and nutritional training, financial literacy training, and to join savings groups. Through couple-based activities, women and men receive training on issues that affect them. 

We promote shared roles and responsibilities, joint decision-making, and a shared financial vision. This creates a positive environment where women can actively participate in program activities, generate income, and make household decisions with their spouses.

In two years of program implementation, Mangwana has benefited more than 22,000 smallholder farmers, of which 13,000 are women. This represents around 57% of our beneficiaries. We have more than 13,000 women farmers gaining farming skills, along with access to financial services, grants, and markets, which is redefining household dynamics in agriculture. Among these 13,000 women, 72% report greater decision-making authority in their households and on their farms.

Impact Metrics: Measuring Empowerment and Agency

3. Beyond income increases, how does TechnoServe measure success when working with women farmers? What shifts have you seen that signal lasting transformation?

Cristina: Our view of success for women farmers is that they become economically empowered. An economically empowered woman experiences an increase in her income and in her ability to make and act on economic decisions that affect her life and those around her.

We focus on income increases because this opens up new opportunities for her. She can save money, invest in healthcare or education for herself or her children, and invest in her business.

But income alone is insufficient. It must come with the ability to control it, to make decisions, and to negotiate with others about how to use it. A large part of this work focuses on unlocking women’s leadership and agency by helping them reconnect with their voices, bolster their self-confidence, and connect with one another. We strive to create spaces in our programs where women can do this.

This makes me think of Zonia in Honduras, who participated in a program that worked with coffee-farming families to improve family well-being. Zonia, a nurse, mother of four, and wife of a farmer, would not have used the title “farmer” for herself, yet she was often left to manage the farm on her own. After participating in our leadership and entrepreneurship workshops, she decided to sell her coffee under her own brand, Liquidámbar. She brought together a group of women for harvesting and works with a young local roaster.

When asked about the most significant change she experienced as part of her participation in TechnoServe’s workshops, she said, “It’s about seeing the future differently, with new plans and ideas—that is, expanding one’s vision of the future and moving forward alongside other women.” It is the clarity and vision of a different future for themselves—and for others—that we hear from women time and again that signal lasting change.

Success Stories: The Ripple Effect of Economic Empowerment

4. Can you share a specific example from Mozambique that illustrates the ripple effects when a woman gains economic power and decision-making authority—in her household, her community, or beyond?

Maria: In Mangwana, community stories of true transformation are beginning to emerge. I would like to share a story from Manica to show the transformation that happens when we support women in different ways.

As we say in Mangwana, the ripple effect starts with who we choose to represent the program in our communities. We deliberately recruit women and men for the program staff. Today, in one of the communities in Manica district, the field technician, the village-based advisor (VBA), and the lead farmer are all women.

At first, it was not easy. Farmers in that particular community were surprised to see an all-women team providing technical assistance. Some men even questioned whether the VBA, a young lady they had seen growing up in their village, could teach them anything new or be listened to. The lead farmer’s husband also questioned this, refusing to accept that his wife could lead a demonstration plot on their own farm, where other farmers could come to learn, since he, as the man, was the plot’s owner.

However, these three women received training through Mangwana and proved themselves. They had the technical skills and the ability to connect with farmers, especially with women farmers. This, combined with our couples workshops and community dialogues, helped create change.

Being in front of another woman made women farmers more open to talking and learning, and they felt supported. They adopted better practices, increased their yields, began selling, participated more in decision-making, and invested the income from their production. Men began to see women as good leaders and managers of their farms.

Women started to see themselves differently. They had thought only men could lead or do technical work, but these women changed how people viewed them, and they are now visible every day in their communities. Girls started to see new possibilities, women felt more encouraged, and men began to see women as partners and economic actors. The ripple effect continues: more women joined the program, and more households worked together to make decisions about what to plant, how to use their income, how to plan for their future, and to join saving groups.

Actions to Promote Economic Empowerment for Future Farmers

5. What gives you hope about the next generation of women farmers?

Cristina: The enthusiasm, curiosity, and energy of a new generation of women farmers and entrepreneurs give me hope. They see opportunities where others often see insurmountable challenges.

Take Mounira Kaffou, a young woman farmer and entrepreneur in northwest Benin. She is the founder of a growing agribusiness focused on gardening and small livestock. She began in 2021 with just a few goats to cover her household needs, but her curiosity and drive led her to find new opportunities. She noticed that farmers in the area were buying waste from her goats and learned they were using it as organic fertilizer for vegetables. This led her to start growing her own vegetables for sale and combine that with her goat farming.

Mounira’s husband helped her by improving her access to water and encouraging her to pursue the farming project. When Mounira joined the BeniBiz program, she learned how to create a business plan, track daily expenses, calculate costs, and plan for growth. She is now saving money and contributing to her household’s well-being. As her business has grown, so has her influence. Other women respect her, and her husband consults her before making certain decisions. Change is possible, a hopeful future is around the corner, and women farmers are key to that future.

Maria: What gives me hope about the new generation is that women farmers are curious, innovative, and eager to learn. In Mangwana, we see women and young farmers as change agents. As we promote agriculture as a business, the next generation of women farmers is changing how agriculture is practiced and viewed in communities. If I could make the world understand one thing about women, I would say that if we grant young women the farming skills, resources, improved techniques, and decision-making power, they grow crops, feed families and communities, and build resilient economies.