Women farmers, especially female peasant and family farmers are pivotal to build back better food systems. 60% of the world’s food is produced by smallholders on 30% of the global agricultural surface. 50%-80% of this food, depending on the country and region, is produced by women. 

SWISSAID and partners launched a qualitative investigation into what female farmers’ motives are to transition (or not) into sustainable food systems. Based on in-depth interviews with six female farmers around the topics of healthy diets, sustainable agricultural production and incomes according to the main objectives of sustainable food systems.

Based on the testimonials of Aïssa, Amina, Rut, Chathurika, Anne and Kathrin,the findings can be summarized as follows:

1. The women are first and foremost looking to strengthen their independence and autonomy::

• The women are constantly negotiating their space of rights and freedom in the households and communities. Being recognized as right holders by their male family members is key to make it acceptable that they farm and that they earn their own income.

• The women pursue autonomy in their farming through chosen agroecological practices and a systemic, agroecological approach to food systems. They replace commercial synthetic inputs with their own organic ones, select and multiply their own seeds, maintain soil fertility with compost, mulching, and manure. They experiment and teach their knowledge to their peers.

• The women seek to remain independent as entrepreneurs: they would rather work with neighbours they trust and build up the knowledge in their own community, than relying on costly services and technology of external private companies, that they cannot understand nor replicate.

2. All these women have actively chosen to become farmers. Their motivation lies in their interest to provide healthy diets for their communities. They substantially contribute to the autonomous realization of the Right to Food in their respective locations.

3. The six women depend on markets that pay an adequate price for their products. This requirement is key as agroecology has a cost in terms of its labor intensity. To get better prices, the women establish direct contacts with their end consumers. Such short value chains allow them to remain independent from volatile prices on the international commodity and input markets and from domestic and international value chains which do not sufficiently reward agroecological production.

4. Agroecology further allows these women farmers to grow food while taking care of the natural resources and ecosystem services they rely on for the wellbeing of their communities. Finally, the women need to be able to react flexibly to climate variability or other hazards. Agroecology allows them to mitigate these risks by working alternately on staple foods, meats, vegetables and fruits so that they have something to eat and/or sell throughout the year.

In view of the follow up of the United Nation Food System Summit, the report recommends that UN should build on a process at the foremost inclusive, international and intergovernmental platform on agriculture and food security, the Committee on World Food Security (CFS), to guide, monitor and evaluate the implementation of sustainable food systems based on Human Rights and the emancipatory potential of agroecology. Such a process should be conducted in collaboration with the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food. It should be built on the unfolding mechanism to follow-up on the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants (UNDROP) as well as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).

Member States must provide more space to farmers by stepping up agroecological research and the dissemination of agroecological knowledge, by supporting short value chains or direct marketing with equitable profit margins for farmers, by protecting certain products and value chains that are key for local markets.