Future Harvest - Women Feed the World Close your eyes and imagine a typical farmer. Perhaps you imagined a hefty man in a worn pair of overalls sitting on a tractor. You probably didn't envision a young woman with a baby on her back hoeing a field, a woman throwing out a fish net into a small pond, or a young girl cutting grass for dairy cows. Scenes like these are the norm in most of the world, where women do the majority of farming.
Women are vital in nourishing the world.
They produce 60 to 80 percent of the food in most developing countries and their role in farming continues to grow. In Sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean, they provide up to 80 percent of staple foods. In Asia, they perform up to 90 percent of the work in rice fields. In the field, women farmers sow, weed, apply fertilizer and pesticides, harvest, and thresh the crops. After the harvest, rural women are responsible for storing, handling, stocking, processing, and marketing the crops.