The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations declared 2026 the International Year of the Woman Farmer (IYWF), wanting to spotlight the essential roles women play across agrifood systems, from production to trade. Women farmers are central to food security, nutrition and economic resilience, yet their crucial contributions all too often remain unrecognised and unseen. IYWF 2026 will raise awareness and promote actions to close the gender gaps and improve women’s livelihoods worldwide.
Today, let’s spotlight the women of the seaweed capital of the Philippines: Tawi-Tawi.
Seaweed
You might not know it (yet), but seaweed is an integral part of the agriculture industry and the Philippines play an important role in supplying it to the world. The country’s capital of seaweed is the province-island of Tawi-Tawi, located in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao ( BARMM) in the southern part of the Philippines.
Of the 600.000 tonnes of seaweed exported by the Philippines yearly, Tawi-Tawi produces 40%. Most of it is exported for carrageenan, better known as E407 on our ingredient lists: a gelling agent for the food processing industry.
But back to Tawi-Tawi, where the men harvest the agal-agal – the local name for the Eucheuma and Kappaphycus seaweeds – in wooden boats in the Celebes Sea and pass their harvest to women, waiting in the villages where the houses are built on stilts in the shallow waters. It’s the women who are responsible for processing.
Decline
But there’s a problem… For the people of Tawi-Tawi, seaweed is life, quite literally, and the hands of their women ensure income and security for their families. Climate change and the general state of the world, however, are threatening their way of life. With the volatile prices due to competition from abroad, farmers in Tawi-Tawi already operate at a loss, but climate change is quickly escalating the problem: the higher sea temperatures due to climate change make the precious seaweed vulnerable to ice-ice disease, a bacterial infection that can ruin entire harvests at a time. As a result, the people from Tawi-Tawi turn to unsustainable practices just to survive: cutting mangrove forests for charcoal, spearfishing or even gathering rocks from the seabed to crush into gravel.
FAIR-Value project
Recognizing these challenges, the FAO and her partners launched the Farmer-Fisherfolk’s Advancement and Integration to Resilient Value Chains (FAIR-Value) project. Implemented in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao, the European Union-funded project aims to improve seaweed production, value chains and marketability.
The hands-on training programme is working to increase skills in sustainable farming, climate-smart techniques and making seaweed into high-value products. Participants learn various skills including preparing planting materials and setting up a farm from scratch. They also learn from each other through farm field schools.
The farmers-fisherfolks advancement and integration to resilient value chain was launched to empower seaweed farmers to adopt sustainable cultivation and marketing practices toward achieving the Four Betters.
Impact for the women of Tawi-Tawi
Without seaweed, most women from the Tawi-Tawi region would not be able to work. Without an income to provide financial independence for themselves and the essentials for their families, these women would become very vulnerable, very fast.
Thanks to the programme’s trainings and help, the women can keep doing what they do best: process agal-agal and provide incomes for themselves and their children.
Here’s what some of them have to say:
Header picture + article source: ©FAO/ Dadis Dawnavie
