Colombia: women farming the future

Colombia’s rural policy increasingly recognizes gender inequalities. For example, in 2025, the government allocated approximately €5.1 million to the FOMMUR program. The program supports rural women and women-led organizations through productive investments, technical assistance, and financial support.

These efforts are complemented by the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Security and Nature (LVVN) supported projects, through which the Dutch Embassy in Colombia builds partnerships, connects local organizations across the LAN team's network and facilitates knowledge exchange to amplify locally led initiatives. This approach creates opportunities for women to strengthen livelihoods, restore ecosystems, build businesses and participate in decision-making.

The stories of Luisa Rojas and Leidy Odor, two rural women involved in projects supported by the Ministry of LVVN, illustrate what rural women’s leadership looks like on the ground.

Their stories are different, but they share a common message: when rural women have opportunities to strengthen their knowledge, participate in decision-making and generate income, they contribute not only to their own livelihoods, but also to the resilience of their families, communities and territories.

Luisa Rojas: indigenous seeds help restore the Amazon

In the Colombian Amazon, Luisa Rojas is a member of the Indigenous Bará community. Her relationship with agriculture began long before her professional career as an agricultural engineer and rural extension worker. She grew up accompanying her mother, grandmother and aunts in the chagras – traditional Indigenous production systems where food is grown and knowledge about plants, soils, food and the cycles of nature is passed from one generation to the next.

For Luisa, seeds are at the heart of this knowledge. ‘Conserving a seed is not simply storing it somewhere. It means understanding the products and cycles of nature.’ This knowledge has become increasingly important in a territory affected by deforestation and the expansion of the agricultural frontier. Through an initiative implemented by Tropenbos Colombia and supported through the Ministry of LVVN, community nurseries have been established to produce native species for ecological restoration and productive purposes. These nurseries include copoazú, açaí and moriche palm, as well as native timber and medicinal species.

Community nurseries give women a stronger voice

But the nurseries are producing more than seedlings. They are creating new spaces for women’s participation and leadership. Women have traditionally played a central role in Indigenous food systems, acting as custodians of seeds and transmitters of knowledge about crops, food, natural remedies, and sustainable production.

However, this knowledge has not always translated into economic opportunities or decision-making power. The nursery process has helped change this. Women are becoming more actively involved in community organizations. Together, they manage nurseries and produce native seedlings. At the same time, they develop new organizational and leadership skills. The plants they produce contribute to ecosystem restoration while also creating possibilities for food security and future income generation.

Land, markets and finance remain barriers

The project has given Luisa knowledge about native timber species—a topic traditionally associated with men, but one she now has insight into. It has also changed how she views the value of these species. Rather than seeing it only as a source of wood, she now recognizes its role in restoring ecosystems and strengthening the resilience of the territory to climate change.

This broader perspective gives women new knowledge to contribute to environmental management and decisions about how their territories respond to a changing climate. For Luisa, environmental restoration is therefore not only about protecting ecosystems, but also about creating space for women to apply their knowledge and exercise agency and leadership.

Yet greater participation also requires access to resources and decision-making power. Luisa emphasizes the need for better access to land, agricultural finance, technical assistance and markets. Although Indigenous territories are collectively owned, decisions over land use can still be dominated by men. The challenge, therefore, is not simply to recognize women’s knowledge, but to ensure that they have the opportunities and resources to turn that knowledge into sustainable livelihoods and greater participation in territorial decision-making.

Leidy Odor: turning cacao into jobs and opportunities

Hundreds of kilometers away, in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Leidy Odor is building another kind of rural future. A lifelong campesina (rural woman) from Colombia’s Caribbean region, Leidy grew up surrounded by agriculture in one of the country’s most biodiverse territories.

From an early age, she helped her grandmother work the land, where the family cultivated cacao, coffee, cassava, plantain and other crops primarily grown for household consumption. Her grandmother also taught her how to transform and preserve food, knowledge that would later become the foundation of her own work.

Today, Leidy has turned these traditions into Cacao Alma Sierra, an enterprise combining cacao production, chocolate making, gastronomy and tourism. Its agrotourism route invites visitors to experience cacao not only as a product, but as part of the territory’s landscape, food and culture. Her initiative currently involves eight women, creating employment and opportunities for economic empowerment within the community.

Gastronomy and tourism strengthen community resilience

For Leidy, entrepreneurship is also about inspiring other women: ‘Women have enormous capacities to lead a business, even if they have not had formal education. Sometimes they are simply afraid to start.’ Her story is closely connected to the history of her territory. The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta has been deeply affected by Colombia’s armed conflict, while remote communities have historically faced limited access to public services and economic opportunities.

Through Hosts for Peace (Anfitriones para la Paz), implemented by Conexión and supported by the Ministry of LVVN, local women and young people have received training in gastronomy and tourism rooted in ancestral knowledge. By strengthening women’s knowledge of local agricultural practices and creating new economic opportunities, the initiative helps build community capacity to adapt to climate change. Tourism also helps visitors recognize the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta as a vital ecosystem that provides water, supports biodiversity and sustains local livelihoods, turning tourism into an opportunity to raise awareness about its conservation.

One of the most valuable aspects of the project, says Leidy, was that it reached a territory that had often been left behind by public institutions and policies because of its history of conflict. The training allowed her to strengthen her knowledge of traditional gastronomy, develop new chocolate recipes, and connect agricultural production with local markets. The result is a model in which tourism does not simply bring visitors into a territory. Instead, the territory itself becomes the source of the experience: its food, landscapes, agricultural practices, culture and knowledge.

Women face unequal pay and double workload

The experiences of Luisa and Leidy reflect challenges faced by rural women across Colombia. Women contribute throughout agrifood systems, from production and processing to food preparation and commercialization, while also carrying a significant share of household and care responsibilities.

For Leidy, gender inequality remains particularly visible in agricultural labor. She has experienced women being paid less than men for fieldwork, based on the perception that men are physically stronger and therefore more productive. This reflects a broader rural gender gap. Colombia’s National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE) reported that women in rural areas earned 28.4% less than men in average monthly labor income. For her, equality means recognizing the value of women’s work and ensuring that both labor and agricultural products receive equal recognition and pay.

Luisa highlights similar challenges from the Amazon, emphasizing the importance of access to land, finance, technical assistance, and markets if rural women are to turn their knowledge into sustainable livelihoods.

Yet, both stories also show that change is already taking place. In the Sierra Nevada, women are organizing collectively, creating businesses, and generating employment. In the Amazon, women are increasingly taking leadership roles in community nurseries and participating in organizational and territorial decision-making.

These experiences demonstrate that empowerment is not only about providing training. It is about creating spaces where women can exercise agency, make decisions, generate income, and see their knowledge recognized as an asset. They also show that gender equality and environmental sustainability are deeply connected. Women are custodians of seeds, traditional food systems and ecological knowledge. They are entrepreneurs creating value from local resources, participants in restoration and conservation processes, and leaders developing new economic opportunities in territories affected by deforestation, marginalization, and conflict.

How the LAN team works with woman across the value chain

For the LAN team in Bogotá, working with rural women goes beyond supporting individual projects. A gender perspective is increasingly integrated across the broader agenda, from land administration and territorial governance to technical assistance, entrepreneurship and sustainable agrifood systems.

The team also works to make women’s contributions more visible, strengthen connections between local initiatives and decision-makers, and bring gender considerations into dialogue with government and other partners. By approaching gender from these different angles, LAN seeks to help create the conditions for women not only to participate in rural development, but to influence how Colombia’s rural future is shaped.

Campesina pride and a more resilient future

When asked what she would like the world to know about rural women in Colombia, Leidy emphasizes their essential role in food production and the resilience they have demonstrated in the face of adversity. For her, being a rural woman is ultimately a source of pride: ‘Being a rural woman is an honor. I will never regret being a campesina.’ Luisa offers another powerful image. Rural women, she says, are: ‘Weavers of life, resilience and opportunities for their families, communities and territories.’

Their stories remind us that rural women should not be viewed only as beneficiaries of development programs. They are farmers, entrepreneurs, leaders, environmental stewards, knowledge holders and agents of change.

More information

For more information about the projects mentioned in this article, you can reach out to the LAN team at the Dutch Embassy in Bogotá via: bog-lvvn@minbuza.nl.