In rural communities worldwide, women are the backbone of food production and care. However, they are also on the frontlines of a growing health and environmental crisis caused by the widespread use of agrochemicals. Pesticides and synthetic fertilizers, central to the industrial corporate food system and production model, play a central role in the triple planetary crises: the intensification of climate change, the degradation of ecosystems and loss of biodiversity, and environmental pollution.
Our new briefing paper “Rural women, care and agrochemicals” shows that women face exposure in every dimension of life. In Ecuador’s banana and floriculture industries, women work amid fumigation and chemical residues, often without protection. Many bring pesticide-use practices into family greenhouses near their homes, extending contamination into the domestic sphere. Women are exposed to toxics during care work, when they are washing contaminated clothes, preparing food, and fetching water. Toxics also increase their already heavy care work when they nurse sick family members.
“We are in a constant struggle. We seek to produce food that is healthy and agrodiverse […] bananas, cocoa, cassava, coffee, citrus fruits, avocados […]. However, in our surroundings […] we find large areas of banana monocultures. Through fumigation, using light aircraft or drones, extensive production contaminates nature, our production and ourselves.” Evelyn Yánez and Daisy Chávez, rural woman from Ecuador.
Care as resistance and transformation
Despite these injustices, rural women are building transformative alternatives rooted in care. They are leading the resistance against a food system centred on extraction and pollution that accumulates wealth in the hands of a few while externalising harms to communities and the environment. In Ecuador, the Rural Women’s Network has embarked on an agroecological transition that includes diversified production, seed protection, women-led agroecology schools, territorial food reserves free of agrochemicals, and community markets.
Similarly, in Honduras, women fishers are defending their coastal territories, which are being polluted and privatized by industrial shrimp farming. The destruction of mangroves and marine biodiversity has made it increasingly difficult for these women to feed their families or make a living while compounding the impacts of climate change on coastal communities. Yet, they continue to take care of the marine ecosystems and their communities, demanding co-governance of marine resources, restoring mangroves and advocating for sustainable fishing practices.
“We are full of shrimp laboratories; they took our beaches and left us only rubble and pollution. They did not fulfil their promises to provide employment for the community.” Leader of the Cedeño community.
These efforts are not only about ensuring food security; they are about reclaiming control over the natural resources that sustain life and over the way food is produced and families are fed. By embracing agroecology, women are showing that care within food systems, care for the land, water, and forests, and communities, is a key force for social and environmental justice. They are advocating for ways of producing, collecting and exchanging food that are based on care and solidarity, not on toxic inputs and corporate greed.
The challenges rural women face are compounded by gender inequalities. While they provide most of the unpaid care work, they receive little to no support from the state, and their work is often undervalued and invisibilized. As noted by Marcos Orellana, UN Special Rapporteur on Toxic Substances and Human Rights, women face a “double injustice”—they are responsible for shielding their families from invisible toxics but are often denied the resources and information necessary to protect themselves and their communities.
Rural women’s leadership and transformative practices offer a roadmap for a just and toxic-free world. To support and amplify their efforts it is essential that states:
- Recognize food care as essential: Acknowledge the critical role of women’s care work in sustaining life and food systems.
- Redistribute care responsibilities: Implement policies that share care work equitably across families, communities, and the state.
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- Support agroecology: Invest in sustainable, women-led agroecological practices, providing training, resources, and market access.
- Enforce protective measures: Enact strong, gender-responsive regulations to protect rural women from agrochemicals and other toxic substances.
If we are serious about just, healthy, and sustainable food systems, we must place care—and the women who provide it—at the center of policy and action. Protecting their rights is not only a matter of justice; it is essential for the future of food and the health of our planet.