The Policy Blindspots: Impact Women Farmers

Global intellectual property policies were traditionally designed to be gender-neutral. However, legal experts and agricultural economists have raised concerns that these standardized legal frameworks often yield unintended, disparate impacts on women, particularly in rural and agrarian communities.

A core policy requiring review centres on lies within international trade and strict seed patenting agreements, such as elements of the TRIPS framework. In many developing regions, women serve as the primary custodians of biodiversity and traditional agricultural knowledge and have for generations, managed the selection, preservation, and sowing of seeds to ensure crop resilience. Modern, rigid patent regimes frequently restrict and sometimes even criminalize these traditional agricultural practices, forcing smallholders to buy expensive, corporate-patented seeds every season.

This creates a severe economic strain that threatens the livelihood and food security of female farmers who operate with minimal capital. Critics argue that current IP structures inherently favour large-scale, industrialized commercial entities at the expense of indigenous and localized knowledge systems. Addressing this imbalance requires a fundamental re-evaluation of global policy, so as to ensure that future treaties protect community-based innovation and preserve the vital role women play in global agricultural sustainability.

Reference: Sibanda, M. (2026). Guardians of heritage: women’s position in traditional seed systems and agroecology in Zimbabwe. Agriculture & Food Security 14. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40066-025-00573-w