Publications
Sowing stories, cultivating equality | When the leaves began to fall silent: A young woman in Fontem, watches a disease take the crop that fed her family and decides to act (By Kungang Ambotaba Nora, Cameroon)
01/09/2026
In Fontem, Cameroon, Kungang watches a disease slowly destroy the cocoyam that has fed families for generations and provided women like her mother with income and independence. When her mother stands in a dying field and asks how she will feed her children, Kungang cannot accept the loss as inevitable. 10 p.
Voluntary Guidelines on Gender Equality and Women’s and Girls’ Empowerment in the Context of Food Security and Nutrition (Pocket essentials)
01/09/2026
The guidelines explore and address the systemic barriers and the multiple challenges that women and girls face in food security and nutrition, providing entry points and a comprehensive framework for stakeholders to create more inclusive, equitable, and sustainable food systems that benefit everyone. These pocket essentials introduce the guidelines' nine focus areas. 26 p.
Sowing stories, cultivating equality | Seeds of dignity: From struggle to global food sovereignty (By Zeinab Almoumani, Jordan)
01/09/2026
After losing her mother who worked for years in the fields under the Jordanian sun, Zeinab promises to stand beside the women who work the land. She becomes the founder of a women’s cooperative that grows into a movement. After two years of legal disputes, she secures recognition for women farming leased land and later wins the right - during a live national television debate - to establish the first union for women farmers. 10 p.
Assessing dairy’s role in women’s empowerment: A systematic review
01/09/2026
The purpose of this paper is to review the available evidence on the impacts of dairy production on SDG5, Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women and Girls. Results show that dairy development can contribute to women's empowerment, but the effects are generally modest. 64 p.
Sowing stories, cultivating equality | The land gives and the land takes away: Reclaiming ancestral wisdom, one harvest at a time (By Mutinta Handoondo, Zambia)
01/09/2026
Growing up in rural Zambia, Mutinta dismissed her grandmother’s seed-saving and natural farming practices as “old ways”. Years later, after watching the land deteriorate, she returned home with an agricultural education and a new understanding: ancestral knowledge and modern science did not have to compete. Facing doubts that a young woman could lead, Mutinta put both to the test. 8 p.
Sowing stories, cultivating equality | A strength that is often invisible: Living with a rare illness, a woman turns the food she can eat into a farm that feeds others (By Siguenda Piemoe–Adams, Suriname)
01/09/2026
Living with the rare, invisible illness, Siguenda stops waiting for perfect health and starts growing healthy, gluten- and lactose-free food her body can accept. Cassava, deeply rooted in Suriname’s history and in the traditions of the women who came before her, becomes the foundation of a small farm and agro-processing business. 9 p.
Sowing stories, cultivating equality | Planting the water before the tree: In dryland Buhera, a young woman farmer learns that the land restores itself only when you listen to it (By Vimbai Nhengu, Zimbabwe)
01/09/2026
Born into a dry and degraded land that grandparents remember as abundant, Vimbai is inspired by traditional rainwater-harvesting practices to restore her community’s landscape. She begins raising trees from seed, only to watch her carefully tended exotic species fail. Learning to listen to the land, she turns to resilient indigenous trees. 9 p.
Sowing stories, cultivating equality | When the watermelons rot: Returning to her village, a young woman finds power, belonging, and a business (By Toyosi Olatayo, Nigeria)
01/09/2026
At fifteen, Toyosi watched her family’s watermelon harvest rot in the fields when no buyers came, convincing her that farming was a trap. Years later, studying geography, she understood that farmers were not failing, the systems around them were. Determined to change this, she searched relentlessly for a buyer for the cassava grown in her community until one company finally listened. 8 p.