Women make up nearly half of the agricultural workforce in developing countries, yet they account for fewer than one in five of the world’s agricultural landholders. As rising food prices, climate volatility, and food security concerns put farming back at the center of public debate, the United Nations designated 2026 as the International Year of the Woman Farmer, bringing renewed attention to a workforce that remains central to food systems while often excluded from land ownership, financing, and decision-making.
Between January and August 2026, I spent two weeks living with each of six women farmers. In the Galápagos, María Espinoza grows food without chemicals on islands that still import most of what they eat. In Guatemala, Aurelia Beb Tec cultivates cacao on land returned to her Q’eqchi’ community through a reparations process after decades of dispossession and war. In Chiapas, Yumara Salas Ramírez became the first woman to serve as secretary of her coffee cooperative. In Haiti, Lucianie Vil, a 70-year-old Madan Sara, carries her harvest by mule to the border market of Anse-à-Pitre. In Arkansas, Samantha Noble coordinates poultry production at a ranch devoted to regenerative farming. And in Honduras, Milexy Rodríguez lost 15 cows in 40 days when drought dried up her lagoon, rebuilding by drilling a well and diversifying.
The resulting photographs follow the rhythm of their days and the pressures shaping food production where they live. They also show what these women have built: cooperatives, savings groups, a coffee brand of their own, knowledge passed on to their daughters and neighbors.
María Espinoza
San Cristóbal Island, Galápagos, Ecuador
María Espinoza, 54, lives in the highlands of San Cristóbal Island, in the Galápagos. She is up at 5 a.m. to feed her animals before heading into the fields, where she grows fruit and vegetables on a plot she slowly reclaimed from invasive blackberry. She lives alone but the farm sets the rhythm of her day, keeps her company, and puts food on the table.
Fresh water on the island is scarce and depends on El Junco lagoon, while pests and food shipped in from the mainland make farming hard. María uses no chemicals, makes her own organic fertilizers, and, since 2023, has trained in protecting soil and crops without pesticides.
