In a remote province in northeastern Afghanistan, women farmers are playing a vital role in their community’s survival among the snow-capped mountains. The fields of Eshtiwi show only the first faint signs of growth in June, with small green sprouts emerging around the village.
Habiba, who spoke to reporters while weeding, is proud to have been farming in Nuristan province for decades.
“Since I was eight years old, I’ve been going to the field with my mother,” said the 46-year-old, who only has one name. “When we harvest wheat, beans, potatoes and corn in the fields in autumn and bring them back home, we feel happy,” she added.
In Afghanistan, women are generally allowed to farm despite being banned by the Taliban government from most employment.
Mohammad Yahya Faizi, a 34-year-old agriculture graduate, said he respects the women’s work. “We would not have food any more in the middle of the winter” without their work, he said.
In summer, Eshtiwi is only reachable by a dirt track. Before a visit from Agence France-Presse, it had been years since international media had reached the village.
Faizi said “tasks have been divided between men and women” for generations in the Parun Valley, where residents speak their own dialect.
“Women are busy with agriculture, planting, watering and cooking at home,” said Faizi, a village farmer who volunteers with the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations.
Men help with animal-drawn ploughs, handle livestock, and gather firewood for winter, when snow cuts the village off from the outside world for almost six months.
Habiba’s day starts at around 4am, when she gets up to pray before preparing breakfast with her daughters on a wood-fired stove. She makes bread using flour from her wheat, together with red beans from her fields, to eat alongside butter and dried yogurt made by her husband.
The room, which doubles as a kitchen and bedroom, was decorated with flowers drawn by Habiba’s 11-year-old daughter, Nahida, who was practising English that she had learned at the village school.
While her mother never had the chance to go to school, Nahida’s education will soon stop as girls nationwide are banned from education beyond the age of 12.
Unrecognised women
FAO has declared 2026 the International Year of the Woman Farmer, with the agency highlighting how “unrecognised” their vital role is in supporting food security.
This is particularly true in Afghanistan, where almost a third of the population needs emergency food aid according to the UN.
Bibi Jan, a 70-year-old who grows beans and potatoes, said farming can be gruelling. “We have to work hard, our hands peel … but there are children to feed,” she said.
Habiba dreams of having a tractor, but it is too expensive; there is only one in the village that a family rents out to those who can afford it.
“I’m not that strong; my back and my legs hurt,” she said.
Najia, who requested her surname not be used for privacy reasons, agreed that local farmers need more tools as well as opportunities to trade. “Farming is a great profession; it’s not just for men,” said the 28-year-old, who went to university in Pakistan.
The farmers often have surplus crops, she said, but “there is no structured market to sell our produce.”
Being in such a remote area makes it impossible to sell directly to customers, and there are only limited options to meet traders who pass through.
Najia said she sells potatoes for 70 Afghan afghanis (HK$8.48) for 7kg, but would need around 150 afghanis to earn a decent income.
‘Help each other’
Storage units have been financed by the United Nations to allow harvests to be kept and sold when the market improves. Some of the women have received better seeds. FAO has also introduced agroforestry – the combination of trees and crops on the same plot – to diversify the women’s income.
Faizi said that the village, which once produced only apples and walnuts, now has cherry, pear and peach trees, among others. But climate change is a major concern, with less predictable snowfall and rainfall, as well as floods that destroy crops.
The UN Development Programme has found that Afghanistan is among a group of countries that “have contributed the least to global warming yet bear its heaviest costs”.
For Najia, the weather was a further challenge: “We can’t predict it; it just hits us.” But despite the difficulties, she said women love working outdoors together.
“We can help each other,” she said, while also providing the village with nutritious food. “What we grow with our own hands is very healthy.”
