The silent backbone of our fields

The gendered inequalities within Pakistan’s agrarian economy, especially in the context of corporate farming and rural women’s marginalization, are many. The government’s recent push for corporate farming aimed at boosting agricultural productivity is being promoted as a long-overdue reform. However, beneath the surface of this seemingly progressive move lies a deeper concern: it risks entrenching existing inequalities in Pakistan’s agrarian economy, especially for the millions of rural women who form its unacknowledged backbone. While corporate farming may generate profits for a select few large landowners, it offers little to the vast majority of smallholders, sharecroppers, and landless rural workers, many of whom are women. These women are crucial to the agriculture sector, yet their contributions remain largely invisible. They sow seeds, weed fields, harvest crops, and perform post-harvest tasks. They also rear livestock, collect firewood, and fetch water — all while shouldering the burden of unpaid domestic and care work. Despite this, rural women are often categorized as contributing family workers, a label that strips them of any claim to autonomy or decision-making. In theory, Pakistani women have both constitutional and religious rights to inherit and own land. In practice, however, they are routinely denied these rights. Many women relinquish inherited land to male relatives, often as part of informal family arrangements involving dowries or anticipated support during times of crisis. This lack of land ownership cuts them off from collateral, denying them access to credit and, by extension, control over agricultural decision-making. The result is a vicious cycle: without access to land, inputs, or credit, women farmers are unable to increase their productivity. Moreover, because their productivity remains low, their economic potential is overlooked. As male members of rural households increasingly migrate to cities, women’s roles in managing farms are expanding. Yet, this shift has not translated into increased support for women’s entrepreneurship, access to markets, or value addition in agriculture. Moreover, violence against rural women remains widespread. Many face harassment and exploitation at the hands of landowners, labor contractors, and even local officials. Poverty, patriarchal norms, and entrenched sociocultural biases only deepen their vulnerability. Donor-driven development projects often fail to grasp the complexity of these gender dynamics. Imported models of rural development are rarely adapted to local realities, and with little sex-disaggregated data, programmatic blind spots persist. Microfinance schemes, frequently touted as tools of empowerment, tend to prioritize repayment over actual control by women over productive resources and decisions. Women are also underrepresented in agricultural extension services and rural development policymaking, a gap that undermines the efficacy of both. As Pakistan gears up to meet the challenges of climate change, it is concerning that adaptation and mitigation efforts are similarly gender-blind. Despite Pakistan’s official commitments to international treaties on gender equality, agricultural policies continue to ignore the constraints women face. This failure not only perpetuates exploitation but also hampers the country’s agricultural potential. Agricultural reform that overlooks women is incomplete and unjust. If the government truly wishes to modernize agriculture and improve productivity, it must first ensure that women, the silent backbone of our fields, are given the rights, resources, and recognition they have long been denied. Ignoring rural women’s needs is a missed opportunity for national development. A gender-equitable agrarian policy is not just a moral imperative, it is a productivity imperative. Key recommendations are to enforce women’s land inheritance rights through legal aid and local awareness. Design agricultural extension services that actively include and train women. Provide women with subsidized credit tied to productive control, not just repayment. Collect and publish sex-disaggregated data for rural labor, land ownership, and agri-productivity. Protect rural women from violence through workplace safety laws and local grievance redress mechanisms. Support women’s cooperatives, agri-enterprises, and value-chain participation.