A body called “Wikifarmer” has published a report titled “Voice of the Farmer 2026,” which presents a troubling picture of the livelihood conditions of farmers in Afghanistan and many other countries around the world. The report was published in English under the title “Voice of the Farmer 2026,” and a copy of it has also been shared with the Hasht-e Subh Daily.
Irena Vélez, the producer of this report at Wikifarmer, told the Hasht-e Subh Daily that 68 percent of Afghanistan’s farmers said their income had decreased compared to the previous year, and more than half of them experienced a sharp decline in income.
The report is based on a survey of 10,234 farmers in 158 countries across six continents. Data for this study was collected between November 2025 and March 2026, and according to the producers, it is considered the largest international survey of farmers to date. Afghanistan, with 257 participants, constitutes one of the largest samples in this study.
According to the findings related to Afghanistan, 52 percent of farmers said their income had “decreased significantly” compared to the previous year. Also, 40 percent of respondents reported high levels of stress, and 37 percent said they had faced severe crop losses due to unfavorable weather conditions or pests. Nearly half of the participants in Afghanistan are also under 30 years old.
The survey’s global findings also show that the livelihood crisis is not limited to Afghanistan alone. About half of the participating farmers said they do not receive fair wages for their work, and a quarter of them reported that their income had decreased significantly compared to the previous year.
Additionally, 47.6 percent of respondents rated their financial security at the lowest level, an issue that reflects economic pressures and dissatisfaction with agricultural product prices.
Climate change and pests were cited as other major challenges facing farmers. According to the report, 83 percent of farmers in the countries surveyed said they had lost part of their production as a result of unfavorable weather conditions or pest outbreaks.
Alongside economic problems, dissatisfaction with government support is also widespread. The report’s findings show that 63.4 percent of farmers rated the level of support from their governments at the lowest possible level. The report’s producers say this pattern has been observed similarly across different countries, regardless of their level of development or type of governing system.
According to the report, most participants are full-time farmers and smallholders, with their main activities concentrated in the sectors of agriculture, horticulture, vegetable production, livestock farming, poultry farming, and dairy. The largest number of responses was recorded from Pakistan, France, Algeria, Uganda, Mexico, India, Colombia, Italy, Poland, and Ireland.
The team behind “Voice of the Farmer 2026” has announced that this is the first edition of this global survey and that it is expected to be repeated annually in order to continuously monitor the trend of changes in farmers’ conditions and the challenges they face in different countries.
The team behind “Voice of the Farmer 2026” has announced that this is the first edition of this global survey and that it is expected to be repeated annually in order to continuously monitor the trend of changes in farmers’ conditions and the challenges they face in different countries.
In another part of the report, it states that 51.1 percent of farmers said the prices they receive for their products are not fair. 33.2 percent considered them fair, and 15.7 percent were unsure about this.
Also, 7 out of every 10 farmers in Latin America (71.7 percent) and Europe (68.7 percent), two regions where the problem of low prices is more pronounced, said they consider the prices they receive to be unfair.
The difference between Latin America (71.7 percent) and Africa (34.8 percent) reaches 36.9 percentage points, which is described as the widest regional gap among the main indicators in this report.
The report also shows that farmers who consider prices unfair are, after accounting for other factors, 2.5 times more likely to report that their income has decreased compared to the previous year. This factor was the strongest single predictor in the study’s regression analysis.
You can read the Persian version of this report here:
گزارش جهانی «صدای کشاورز ۲۰۲۶»؛ درآمد ۶۸ درصد دهقانان افغانستان کاهش یافته است
