Feed the Future Newsletter, Issue 133, March 2024

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), if the gender gap in farm productivity and the wage gap in agricultural employment were closed, the world’s gross domestic product would rise by almost $1 trillion, and 45 million fewer people would be food insecure. To solve the greatest challenges of our time, we have to not only reach women, we need to ensure they benefit from interventions that are targeted toward their needs.

Investing in women is one of the biggest opportunities to transform agriculture. Women make up nearly half the agricultural workforce in low-income countries, but lag behind men in access to land, inputs, services, finance and digital technology. Feed the Future is dedicated to making sure that agrifood systems are sustainable, resilient and work for everyone. Millions of women are ready, willing and capable of ending hunger — if only we dismantle the barriers preventing them. Read more about Feed the Future’s efforts to empower women in agriculture in this month’s issue.