Feminisation of Agriculture: Rights, Recognition, and Challenges for Women Farmers

On March 8, 2026, women and girls worldwide will demand equal rights and justice to mark International Women’s Day, which also aligns with 2026 being observed as the International Year of the Woman Farmer.

Feminisation of Agriculture and Associated Challenges

• Meaning : The increasing participation and responsibility of women in agricultural activities due to the migration of men to non-farm jobs, especially in urban areas.
• Recognition Gap: Although women perform most farm activities—from sowing and transplanting to harvesting and managing labour—they are rarely recognised as “farmers” in official records.
• The “Title Trap”: The legal identity of a farmer is largely linked to land ownership; however, most agricultural land is registered in men’s names.
• Patriarchal Inheritance Patterns: Although the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005, grants daughters equal inheritance rights, social norms, lack of legal awareness, and administrative barriers still prevent many women from obtaining land titles.

The Domino Effect of Exclusion

• Limited Access to Institutional Credit: Without land titles to use as collateral, women farmers face difficulty obtaining bank loans and formal credit.
• Exclusion from Insurance and Subsidies: Benefits from crop insurance, irrigation schemes, and agricultural subsidies are usually transferred to the registered landowner (often men), limiting women’s access.
• Invisible and Undervalued Labour: Due to a lack of formal recognition as farmers, women’s contribution to the agri-food system remains largely unrecognised and undervalued in policy and statistics.

Nutritional Paradox and Double Burden of Women Farmers

• Double Burden of Work: Women farmers manage both productive work (agricultural labour) and reproductive responsibilities (childcare), increasing their workload.
• Drudgery in Agriculture: Limited access to women-friendly farm tools and labour-saving technologies leads to intense physical strain.
• Nutritional Paradox: Despite being central to food production, many rural women remain malnourished and anaemic. 
  • The National Family Health Survey (NFHS) describes high anaemia levels among women as a “silent emergency.”
• Intergenerational Malnutrition Cycle: Malnourished mothers often give birth to low-birth-weight children, causing stunting and perpetuating malnutrition, which current PDS systems (focused mainly on wheat and rice) struggle to address.

The Four Priority Solutions

• Redefining Farmers: The policies must recognise a farmer based on actual farm work rather than land ownership.
  • The definition should include landless labourers and tenant farmers, supported by gender-disaggregated data to make women farmers visible in policy.
• Secure Land Rights: The government should promote joint spousal titles to land and provide incentives to register property in women’s names.
  • Success models like the Kerala Kudumbashree model, where women’s collectives lease land for farming, should be encouraged
• Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture: The Public Distribution System (PDS) should be expanded to include millets (Shree Anna), pulses, and other protein sources.
  • Governments should procure vegetables and pulses directly from women farmers for use in Anganwadi and Mid-day meal schemes, while promoting kitchen gardens and women-led seed banks.
• Tech and Extension Access: There is a need for affordable, women-friendly machinery to reduce physical labour.
  • Extension services like call centres, digital training for weather updates, and market information must be made accessible to women to bridge the digital divide.

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Conclusion

If women are provided with rights, knowledge, and institutional backing, they can become the primary drivers of an agriculture system that is climate-resilient, biodiversity-rich, and nutrition-sensitive.

• Achieving “Rights, Justice, and Action” is essential for building a truly equitable and nourished India.

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