Rural women

[3] Women in rural poverty live under the same harsh conditions as their male counterparts, but experience additional cultural and policy biases which undervalue their work in both the informal, and if accessible, formal labor markets.

[7] In particular, pastoralist, ethnic minority, indigenous and rural women continue to face numerous obstacles when trying to access and control natural resources, technological devices and agricultural services; also, they are not involved in processes of decision-making.

[8][9] According to the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, women usually have a harder time obtaining land, tools and knowledge than men, especially in developing countries.

[10][11][12] In general, women account for a greater share of agricultural employment at lower levels of economic development, as inadequate education, limited access to basic infrastructure and markets, high-unpaid work burden and poor rural employment opportunities outside agriculture severely limit women’s opportunities for off-farm work.

About half of the labour force in agriculture is female in several countries in Southeast Asia, including Cambodia, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic and Viet Nam.

They tend to be concentrated in the poorest countries, where alternative livelihoods are not available, and they maintain the intensity of their work in conditions of climate-induced weather shocks and in situations of conflict.

In 2009 World Bank, FAO & IFAD found that over 80 per cent of rural smallholder farmers worldwide were women, this was caused by men migrating to find work in other sectors.

Rural women in a community meeting related to microfinace in India. Rural women play an important part of rural development the world over -- when given economic access and opportunities, they transform their communities investing in infrastructure and community well-being.
Historically, women have faced a number of challenges when participating in agriculture, with patriarchal societies frequently limiting how much agency and control women in agricultural communities have over their own labor. However, with the Feminization of agriculture , the process where men leave rural areas for urban jobs, leaving behind more women tending the land, more women operate as smallholders (like these women in Kenya), playing a vital role in food security and rural economies.
Female farmers in Kenya