Growing equality: How the Pacific’s Organic Toolkit is cultivating safer and fairer food systems

In Pacific communities, farming is more than a livelihood; it has connections to one’s identity, resilience and land.

Women are central to food systems – they plant, harvest, process, market and preserve traditional foods that feed their families and sustain local economies. Yet their work is sometimes undervalued, under-recorded or excluded from decision-making.

Recognising this imbalance, the Pacific Community’s Land Resources Division (LRD), through the Pacific Organic and Ethical Trade Community (POETCom), created the Gender and Organic Value Chain Analysis Toolkit back in 2022 – a first-of-its-kind resource developed in the Pacific, for the Pacific.

The toolkit provides practical, culturally grounded methods for analysis and improving organic value chains so that both women and men benefit equitably, enhancing meaningful participation at the familial and community level.

The 16 Days of Activism campaign reminds us that violence against women and girls is not only physical but also structural.

When women have limited access to land, credit or markets, when their voices are absent in agricultural decisions, or when social norms restrict their participation in cooperatives, the result is a form of systemic exclusion that reinforces dependency and vulnerability.

The toolkit tackles this from the ground up. It invites farmers, processors, extension officers, and community leaders to examine how power flows through agricultural systems.

Using participatory exercises like the “Power Walk”, “Match Up!” and “Gender-Smart Value Chain Mapping”, participants reflect on who controls resources, who decides and who benefits.

What also makes this toolkit distinct is its grounding in Pacific ways of learning and dialogue. Built around Pacific methodologies like Talanoa, the training processes encourage open, respectful conversations about gender norms and the social messages that shape them, from the toys children are given to the roles they inherit as adults.

Its four learning modules take participants on a journey to understand gender, question inequalities, explore why gender matters, and think gender smart. The approach is intentionally participatory and tech-free, making it accessible to farmers, cooperatives, and local trainers.

It builds confidence, encourages sympathy and transforms how communities view both gender and agriculture – not as two separate issues but as interconnected systems that determine how families thrive through inclusive processes and sustainable outcomes.

POETCom’s newest Participatory Guarantee Systems (PGS) member, farmer and president of Palau Organic Growers Association (POGA), Ms Carolyn Ngiraidis shared about the use of the toolkit in her community.

“The toolkit has allowed POGA to work with women farmers to think about ‘inclusivity’ to understand the importance of the different actors (men and children supporting women in the organic value chain work.”

Across the region, the toolkit has informed national trainings and organic certification groups under the ORGANIC pasifika mark, equipping facilitators with skills to integrate gender analysis into project design, value-chain assessment, and community outreach.

It is influencing how farmer organisations plan future organic initiatives, ensuring women’s perspectives guide production, marketing, and enterprise growth.

The 16 Days of Activism is a reminder that equality is everyone’s responsibility. The Gender and Organic Value Chain Toolkit is not just a manual; it is a guide map and a prevention tool. By promoting shared decision-making, fair resource access, and inclusive dialogue, it addresses the underlying inequalities that can lead to violence in homes and workplaces.

The toolkit also stands as a living example of Pacific-led innovation that bridges agriculture, gender equality, and social justice, reminding us that cultivating land can also cultivate respect, safety and opportunity.

This toolkit was published by POETCom with assistance from the Building Prosperity for Women Producers, Processors and Women-Owned Businesses through Organic Value Chains (BPWP) project supported by the Australian Government.