Author: Blanca Casares (AEIDL)
Over the past month, the European Commission has presented two important instruments, the Vision for Agriculture and Food and the Roadmap for Women’s Rights. AEIDL (European Association for Innovation in Local Development), in its role of developing policy recommendations and tools within the GRASS CEILING Project, has examined these instruments to assess the opportunities they provide for advancing gender equality and supporting agricultural and rural transitions for women.
The Vision for Agriculture and Food was announced by Ursula von der Leyen in the political guidelines for her new Commission and adopted on 19 February 2025.
Building on the report of the Strategic Dialogue on the Future of EU Agriculture, and in consultation with the European Board for Agriculture and Food (EBAF), the Vision presents an ambitious roadmap for 2040 on the future of farming and food in Europe aiming to secure the long-term competitiveness and sustainability of the EU’s farming and food sector for current and future generations.
The members of the Strategic Dialogue considered the necessity of achieving full gender equality for the future success of food systems, particularly through equal representation in leadership roles. Despite progress, gender inequalities persist, including unequal access to land, financing, services, and technology. Key recommendations includes integrating gender mainstreaming into agricultural and rural policies, ensuring legal protections and social support for women, and creating an observatory to monitor social conditions. Member States should promote women’s access to financial resources, strengthen land tenure rights, and enhance leadership opportunities in agricultural governance. The European Commission was urged to adopt gender-responsive budgeting, improve data collection on women in agriculture, and conduct a study by 2026 to explore legal status improvements and best practices across Member States.
The recently published Vision is structured around four main objectives, the Vision emphasises:
- The need to build an attractive agricultural sector that ensures a fair standard of living while unlocking new income opportunities.
- The importance of fostering a competitive and resilient agricultural sector capable of addressing global challenges.
- The future-proofing the agri-food sector by fostering a harmonious relationship with nature.
- The relevance of valuing food and fostering fair living and working conditions in vibrant rural areas.
It is worth noting from the Vision that to attract more women to farming and to allow for exchange of experience, the Commission will establish a Women in Farming platform that will strengthen women’s engagement and equal opportunities in the farming sector thanks to the actions brought about by the Platform members. It will also serve as a forum to discuss and exchange good practices.
The Commission will work towards establishing an ‘EU Observatory for Agricultural Land’, starting with a pilot project this year. It will enhance transparency and cooperation in land transactions and transfers of land use rights, price trends and market behaviour, changes in land use, and loss of agricultural and natural land. The Observatory will also help Member States take informed decisions on the regulation of their farmland markets.
The Commission is analysing further proposals at EU and at Member States level to facilitate access to land, credit and knowledge for young farmers. The Generational Renewal strategy, announced in the Vision for Agriculture and Food, will propose concrete and innovative measures in this regard.
Another key policy initiative was presented last month with the European Commission unveiling its Roadmap for Women’s Rights on March 7, just ahead of International Women’s Day.
Building on the progress achieved under the Gender Equality Strategy 2020-2025, the Roadmap sets out a long-term vision to address gender-based violence, ensure equal pay, promote work-life balance, and advance women’s political and economic participation.
The Roadmap sets out long-term policy objectives for upholding and advancing the following key principles of women’s rights and gender equality: (1) freedom from gender-based violence; (2) the highest standards of health; (3) equal pay and economic empowerment; (4) work-life balance and care; (5) equal employment opportunities and adequate working conditions; (6) quality and inclusive education; (7) political participation and equal representation; (8) institutional mechanisms that deliver on women’s rights.
However, GRASS CEILING notes that this roadmap lacks more development and mention of the gender gap in certain sectors, as well as of the specific needs of women in rural areas.
Alongside the Roadmap, it was presented the 2025 Report on Gender Equality. It highlights that sectoral segregation is a major factor contributing to the gender pay gap. Women tend to be over represented in sectors with average lower pay, often because the jobs in these sectors are undervalued and considered ‘women’s job’, such as care and education. As highlighted also in the European care strategy, these are also sectors in which labour shortages are increasingly prominent and likely to increase with population ageing, especially in rural areas.
In the area of agriculture and rural policy, in line with growing concerns around mental health challenges in rural regions, the Commission is paying more attention to the specific factors affecting mental health within the farming community. In 2024, the Commission, in cooperation with the CAP Network, organised an event supporting the mental health of farmers. The gender dimension was very important at this workshop, as women farmers and men farmers tend to cope with mental health issues in a different way.
Read here the Factsheet: Vision for Agriculture and Food
Read here the COM(2025) 75 final A Vision for Agriculture and Food Shaping together an attractive farming and agri-food sector for future generations
Read here the COM(2025) 97 final A Roadmap for Women’s Rights