Okra, coffee and sugarcane bring rural women in Choluteca, Honduras, into leadership

In the department of Choluteca in southern Honduras, hundreds of rural women have turned farming into their own income and opportunity for their families. A World Bank feature published in early March 2026 told the stories of four of them, working with the okra exporter CAVEXSA, the coffee cooperative COCASAM and the sugarcane growers' union UPROCASUR. It said their work in fields and processing plants, long largely unseen, was changing livelihoods and challenging stereotypes. Choluteca is the southernmost department of Honduras, bordered by Nicaragua to the east and south; agriculture, fishing, sugar production and shrimp farms are among its livelihoods.

"Women are capable of anything, as long as we believe we are," said Denia Calderón, an okra producer on the board of directors of CAVEXSA, which the World Bank described as an employer of more than 600 people in the area. "I was a housewife, I'm not ashamed to say it," she recalled. At first farming felt like heavy work meant for men; over time she learned to manage production, deal with pests and make decisions in the field, and she now works her own plot and employs others. "Thanks to okra, I fulfilled my dream of visiting my sister in Spain," she said.

A World Bank feature from February 2026 explained that CAVEXSA began as an association of small producers after an agro-exporter persuaded growers to switch crops and then failed to buy the harvest. It now cultivates 200 manzanas of okra and exports one container a day to the United States, Spain, England, France, Italy and Portugal.

In San Marcos de Colón, a municipality of Choluteca, the San Marqueña Coffee Cooperative (COCASAM) has placed its specialty coffee in international markets; the February feature said it exports all its production, to markets such as the United States and France. Selena Mercado joined in 2008 and began filling bags, transplanting seedlings and working in nurseries. She went on to specialise in selecting high-quality coffee, and at the time of the report had for five years been a permanent employee operating the plant's forklift, a job until recently held almost only by men. "We all have the right to learn," she said. "Before, coffee had to be lifted by force; now it's faster and safer."

María Rutilia Mendoza, an associated producer and secretary of COCASAM's Oversight Board, credits collective organisation: "Before, we delivered our production to intermediaries. By organizing, we have increased the economic value of the coffee." She has added agritourism and handmade products to coffee on her farm, drawing national and international visitors.

Evenilda Morán retired as a primary school teacher in 2015. She owned land suited to sugarcane but had never farmed; she is now president of UPROCASUR, the Union of Sugarcane Producers of the South. "It was not at all a process that allowed us to make money quickly," she said. With the rest of the board she trained in production, machinery, quality control and management to start the country's first industrial plant for powdered sugarcane. The February feature put its workforce at more than 200 permanent jobs and up to 1,000 in the harvest season.

The three groups' business plans were supported by ComRural II, implemented by the Government of Honduras with the World Bank Group. The World Bank approved a US$75 million International Development Association credit for the project in June 2019 to improve access to markets and climate-smart practices in agricultural value chains. The project document said producer organisations with women on their boards would receive extra points when business plans were selected.

According to the March feature, ComRural II has backed 19 business plans of rural producer organisations with more than 2,500 members, one-third of them women. The project aligns with AgriConnect, the World Bank Group's initiative for small-scale agriculture announced in October 2025. The World Bank noted that Honduran women are much more likely than men to hold vulnerable jobs; the 2019 project document put labour force participation at 47 percent for women and 84 percent for men.

Photo: Brbigam / Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Sources: World Bank (the original feature, March 2026; feature of February 2026; ComRural II project appraisal document, June 2019), CCARDESA, Wikipedia