International development discourse on women's empowerment has evolved through frameworks such as Women in Development (WID) and Gender and Development (GAD). However, critical feminist literature argues, firstly, that these paradigms instrumentalize women’s participation in agriculture, shaping empowerment through an economic lens while overlooking structural inequalities. Secondly, the literature reveals how international development discourse often fails to adequately account for the complex realities of local contexts, despite the richness of feminist scholarship on gender and development. Previous research underscores the need for further research into how gender policies shape the lived experiences of those affected by development interventions because there remains a significant lack of research explicitly examining the connections between different levels of policymaking and practice. Therefore, this study addresses this gap by employing a case study design to compare the discourse of the local feminist peasant organization CODIMCA in Honduras with publications from international development organizations. Using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Naila Kabeer’s multidimensional empowerment framework, this research investigates how linguistic choices, intertextuality, and institutional rhetoric influence representations of empowerment and advocacy strategies. By conducting an in-depth textual analysis, reviewing the lexical and iconographic choices within the documents, this research was able to reveal power relationships between groups in the text that signal towards persistent power structures between the international development community and the local grassroots organizations. The main findings reveal that international development organizations often portray women as passive beneficiaries of development initiatives, while simultaneously holding them responsible for intervention outcomes. In contrast, CODIMCA’s discourse centres systemic barriers and collective resistance, using linguistic techniques to shift responsibility onto policymakers and institutional actors. This discrepancy underscores broader tensions between global development narratives and locally driven perspectives, demonstrating how structural violence, impunity, and economic dependencies impact empowerment outcomes. By using the case study of CODIMCA in Honduras and contrasting their discourse with that of international development organizations, this study contributes to ongoing discussions on development effectiveness, advocating for more contextually nuanced empowerment initiatives that align with grassroots feminist activism in rural agricultural settings.