Agrifood systems shape diets and livelihoods, influencing what, where and when foods are available, accessible, affordable and desirable for people. They influence how food is grown, harvested, processed, packaged, transported, distributed, traded, prepared, eaten and disposed of, including people, activities, investments and choices made in producing and delivering food.  

Women are crucial for sustainable and resilient agrifood systems and represent 41 percent of the global agricultural workforce. However, persistent gender inequalities affect women’s and girls’ right to adequate food, including limited access to land, financial resources, education, technologies, market infrastructure, social protection and essential healthcare services, including life-saving maternal and reproductive health care. Their roles are often unrecognized and undervalued and are compounded by a disproportionate burden of unpaid care and domestic work (FAO, 2023).   

Women and girls are among those most affected by malnutrition in all its forms, including undernutrition (wasting, stunting and underweight), inadequate vitamins or minerals intake, overweight, obesity, and resulting diet-related noncommunicable diseases (WHO, 2024). Throughout their life course, women have distinct energy and nutrient requirements from men that are particularly critical during adolescence, pregnancy, breastfeeding and menopause. Malnutrition during a woman’s reproductive years can be detrimental for her own wellbeing and her infants, resulting in low birth weight, child mortality, disease, poorer educational attainment and work productivity as adults. 

Rigid gender roles and prevailing social norms impact the dietary patterns of women and girls. When a household faces food insecurity, they often prioritize the needs of other household members over their own, resulting in women and girls eating lower quantity and/or poorer quality food, skipping meals and facing greater risk of hunger and malnutrition (FAO,2023). Even where food is available, men and boys may be given priority when meals are served. In some contexts, cultural food practices also restrict women's consumption of food groups such as fresh vegetables, meat and other animal-source foods, particularly during certain life stages such as pregnancy, with adverse effects on women and the nutritional status of her infant (Gulema 2024).   

Policy and legal frameworks often overlook the crucial contribution of women and girls within the household, and local social norms and rigid gender roles limit their participation in agrifood systems. Gender-transformative approaches help address these challenges and foster greater equality.  

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) recognizes that existing discrimination and inequalities exacerbate food insecurity and several forms of malnutrition. Gender equality is considered an effective way to improve food security, nutrition and health for women, their family, community and society. FAO actively supports the development of efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable agrifood systems to tackle all forms of malnutrition by accelerating policies and actions across agriculture and food systems to enable healthy diets for all.  

FAO supports global initiatives and standards, including the 2014 Second International Conference on Nutrition, the Codex Alimentarius, the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) Voluntary Guidelines on Food Systems and Nutrition, the Voluntary Guidelines to Support the Progressive Realization of the Right to Adequate Food in the Context of National Food Security and the Voluntary Guidelines on Gender Equality and Women’s and Girl’s Empowerment in the context of Food Security and Nutrition.