Nepal’s food systems rely on women farmers: systemic barriers and structural inequities persist despite their central role
Original framing: “Women farmers: The heartbeat of Nepal's food systems” — bing news
The original framing omits indigenous knowledge systems like *kheti* (traditional farming practices) that have sustained Nepal’s food systems for centuries, as well as historical land reforms that dispossessed women farmers. It ignores the role of caste and ethnicity in determining access to resources, and the impact of climate-induced migration on women’s labor. Marginalized perspectives from Dalit, Janajati, and Madhesi women are erased in favor of a homogenized 'women farmers' narrative.
High structural omission detected in mainstream coverage.
The narrative is produced by international development outlets and Nepali state-aligned media, serving donors and policymakers who frame women’s labor as a 'resource' to be optimized rather than a right to be protected. The framing obscures how global agribusiness, climate finance regimes, and patriarchal land laws intersect to entrench women’s marginalization. It also aligns with neoliberal narratives that depoliticize food sovereignty by reducing systemic issues to 'empowerment' programs.
Nepal’s 1964 Land Act formalized patriarchal land tenure by tying ownership to male heads of household, reversing pre-colonial practices where women often held usufruct rights. The 1990s structural adjustment programs dismantled cooperative farming models, replacing them with input-intensive cash crops that increased women’s unpaid labor. Historical parallels exist in India’s *Zamindari* system and Bangladesh’s *haor* (wetland) economies, where women’s labor was invisibilized in state records.
Nepal’s food systems are sustained by women’s labor, yet this labor is systematically devalued through patriarchal land laws, climate shocks, and neoliberal agricultural policies that prioritize export crops over subsistence farming.