Strengthening households and challenging gender norms
At sunrise across the Pacific’s rural landscapes, women are already at work.
They prepare food, organise children for school, tend kitchen gardens, weed crops, harvest produce and care for elderly relatives, often before the day’s market trading or farm labour begins. In many rural communities, women are the backbone of agriculture. Yet despite their central role in planting, harvesting and processing food, decisions about what to grow, how income is spent, or whether to save or invest are frequently made without them.
These patterns are shaped by deeply rooted gendered social norms; norms that influence who speaks in family meetings, who controls earnings, and whose labour is more often recognised. Over time, these invisible dynamics limit not only opportunities for women, but also the productivity and resilience of farming households and agricultural value chains.
Family Farm Teams (FFT) is helping to rewrite this story, one farm at a time.
FFT was developed by the University of Canberra in partnership with the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR). First trialled with smallholder cocoa and coffee farmers in Papua New Guinea, FFT has since been adapted across different crops, cultures and Pacific Island country contexts. Implemented in partnership with the university and PHAMA Plus in Fiji, PNG, Solomon Islands, Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu, FFT supports families to work as a team – to plan together, share responsibilities, set long-term goals and view their farm as a business. By teaching family pairs, one female and one male from a family, they are able to use FFT’s practical tools and Talanoa in their home, sitting together to map their daily workloads, discuss income use and agree on shared visions for their future. These conversations open space for change.
When women begin speaking from their long experience as farmers, they are able to contribute more confidently to farm plans. Men recognise the value of shared decision-making.
Youth step forward with new ideas. Household chores are redistributed. Farm tasks are planned collectively. Families set shared goals – building a home, paying school fees, investing in irrigation, diversifying crops; and they develop practical steps to achieve them. They begin the transition from semi-subsistence farming to farming as a small family business.
The results are transformative. FFT is cultivating agency, confidence and shared leadership. And in doing so, it is proving that when women are empowered, farms prosper, families are stronger, and agricultural value chains become more resilient for everyone.
By supporting households to challenge deeply rooted social norms at the farm production level, FFT is not only empowering women; it is strengthening supply, improving household resilience, and building more inclusive, competitive agricultural value chains from the ground up.
For International Women’s Day, FFT reminds us that empowering women is not only about representation in boardrooms or policy forums. It is also about day to day actions in households and communities, and can begin around a kitchen table, or in a classroom in a rural village – in a conversation where traditional leaders turn to women in their households and communities and say, “Let’s plan this together.”
FFT is one of many examples brought to life in the Inclusive Agriculture Value Chains Performance Story, produced by the Australian and New Zealand-funded Pacific Horticultural and Agricultural Market Access (PHAMA) Plus Program. The Performance Story brings together evidence from across the region of how PHAMA Plus has worked with governments, agribusinesses and producers to deliver programs that are anchored in four drivers of empowerment: challenging social norms; agency and decision-making; access to assets, skills and services; and changing business practices.
Applied across the agriculture value chain, from household production to processing and market access, this approach has strengthened Pacific agribusiness systems.
Boosting workplace equality and safety initiatives
When women workers at Kaiming Agro Processing, a leading exporter of high-quality ginger, turmeric and kava products in Fiji, were provided with access to safe, secure accommodation, the changes were immediate.
Attendance improved. Retention and workforce stability strengthened. What began as a response to safetyconcerns became a practical demonstration that inclusive workplaces strengthen business performance. For Kaiming’s women workers, the initiative made them feel valued and important and for the business, it is building productivity and resilience and is positioning them as an employer of choice, helping also to address labour shortages. In addition to supporting safe accommodation for Kaiming’s female workforce, PHAMA Plus supported the business to develop a policy on Workplace Domestic Violence and Prevention of Sexual Exploitation, Abuse and Harassment (PSEAH), and associated training to personnel and management to support effective implementation. These initiatives are beginning to address longstanding challenges, with women feeling safer, more valued and better supported. As a business, Kaiming is revolutionising workplace culture and championing change in the private sector.
Across Pacific agriculture, deeply embedded gender norms, disability exclusion and unsafe workplaces continue to shape who participates in value chains and who benefits from growth. This is not only a social challenge; it directly affects supply reliability, labour availability and business competitiveness.
For Pacific Island Countries seeking export growth and resilience, inclusion is not peripheral to agricultural performance, it is central to it. Workforce quality, retention and productivity are closely linked to inclusive workplace practices. Evidence confirms that targeted support to help businesses identify and address barriers to inclusion, including through training, positive workplace policies and safe and affordable accommodation, contributes to improved worker satisfaction, retention and business performance.
Delivering clear economic results
Women-led businesses lack access to support, finance, networks and information that help them to grow their businesses. To level the playing field, PHAMA Plus targeted women-led businesses to give them access to support that they may not otherwise get.
Lotopoha Export Trading, Tonga’s only women-led root crop exporter, transformed root crops from subsistence production into a reliable income source for smallholder farmers, exporting around 28 tonnes per month to New Zealand, Australia and the United States. With PHAMA Plus support, the company opened a purpose-built packhouse in November 2025, and secured HACCP certification in January 2026, improving food safety, export compliance and longterm sustainability.
In Samoa, women-led florists and nurseries unlocked the commercial potential of the ornamental plant sector by establishing exotic plant import pathways, strengthening propagation skills and building a viable domestic market. Within two years, participating businesses scaled production, diversified products and increased incomes, strengthening resilience and future growth prospects.
The evidence is clear, inclusive value chain interventions deliver clear economic results: higher and more diversified incomes, more reliable supply for exporters, reduced labour and productivity constraints, stronger women-led enterprises, and greater resilience of farming households and agribusinesses.
For policymakers and development partners, this matters. Reliable supply underpins export credibility and workforce stability drives productivity. Diversified household income strengthens resilience in the face of climate and economic shocks.
The full Inclusive Agriculture Value Chains Performance Story and Summary Report are available via the PHAMA Plus website.
Full Version: https://shorturl.at/9O60M | Summary Version: https://shorturl.at/hKWPZ