Lahore: Over 120 women farmers and agricultural workers from across Punjab gathered at the Lahore Press Club on Tuesday to mark Rural Women’s Day, demanding ‘gender-just food systems’ and formal recognition of women’s indispensable contribution to Pakistan’s agriculture.
The event, organized by the Pakistan Kissan Rabita Committee (PKRC) in collaboration with the Tameer-e-Nau Women Workers Organization (TWWO), was part of a series of coordinated women-led mobilizations across Asia, initiated by the Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development (APMDD).
Participants called on the government to ensure equal access to land, water, seeds, and agricultural resources for women, alongside protection from climate-induced disasters that continue to devastate rural livelihoods. They also urged policymakers to prioritize domestic food sovereignty over export-oriented corporate farming and to secure climate finance from wealthy nations to support women farmers in adapting to worsening environmental challenges.
Women in rural Pakistan are the backbone of our food systems, yet they remain invisible in policy and resource allocation, said Riffat Maqsood, Chairperson of TWWO. From sowing seeds to harvesting crops, women sustain agricultural life. But as floods, droughts, and corporate land grabs worsen, they are losing access to land and livelihoods. Gender-just food systems mean giving women the right to land, water, and fair prices not charity, but justice.
Pakistan’s agriculture sector continues to struggle under the weight of recurrent floods and droughts. The 2022 floods alone submerged nearly one-third of the country, impacting more than 4 million women working in agriculture. Rural women and girls are among the most vulnerable, often walking long distances to fetch water and firewood as climate stress deepens.
Despite contributing the least to global emissions, small-scale farmers and fishers bear the highest costs of climate adaptation. Rural women cannot and should not be forced to pay for a crisis they did not create, a PKRC representative said. The government must demand public, grants-based climate finance from rich countries under the UN Climate Convention to transform Pakistan’s food systems into sustainable and equitable ones.
The event also coincided with World Food Day and the 80th anniversary of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Speakers criticized the FAO’s historical promotion of industrial agriculture, arguing that it has degraded natural resources, displaced small producers, and accelerated the climate crisis.
As the FAO marks 80 years, we remind the world that industrial agriculture has failed to feed our people, Maqsood added. Real food security comes from women-led, small-scale, and ecological farming systems not from corporate control of our lands and seeds.
The gathering concluded with a collective pledge by rural women to continue mobilizing for climate justice, agrarian reform, and gender equality in Pakistan’s food systems.