Women’s Empowerment
Editor,
Women do most of the work in Indian agriculture but own almost none of the land. According to the Agriculture Census 2015-16, women are roughly 73 per cent of the rural agricultural workforce, yet only about 14 per cent are operational landholders and they own only about 11 per cent of agricultural land. Oxfam India puts it similarly: over 70 per cent of the farm workforce, work under 13 per cent of the land. The Periodic Labour Force Survey 2023-24 shows that around 77 percent of rural working women are engaged in agriculture, and nearly half of them work unpaid.
This is the “feminisation of agriculture”: a rising share of women in farm work, driven largely by men migrating out to non-farm jobs, leaving women to manage crops and livestock while remaining unrecorded, lower-paid and landless.
The problem is that almost every farm welfare scheme is keyed to land records. PM-KISAN, the Kisan Credit Card and crop insurance effectively require proof of land ownership, so a woman who does most of the farming but holds no title is invisible to the state. On July 2, 2026, the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly unanimously passed the Maharashtra Women Farmers Empowerment Bill, 2026, making Maharashtra the first state to legally recognise women as independent farmers. Its core instrument is a “Woman Farmer Certificate” that lets a woman access schemes, subsidies, crop insurance, concessional credit, extension services and procurement irrespective of land ownership. The Bill also creates a State Fund for Women Farmers.
The central argument is that recognition must be delinked from ownership. As long as the state defines a “farmer” by land title, it will keep excluding the very people who till the land. A certificate that recognises the worker, not the owner, is a governance fix for a social reality.
Maharashtra has passed the Women Farmers Empowerment Bill, 2026, granting women farmers legal recognition and access to agricultural schemes. The law, moved by the Devendra Fadnavis government and passed unanimously, aims to address long-standing exclusion of women from land ownership rights and benefits. It is expected to benefit millions of rural women engaged in farming across the state.
The law matters because in Maharashtra, and in the rest of India, the formal definition of a ‘farmer’ has been tied to land ownership, but, as the All-India Report of Agriculture Census 2015-16 showed, women hold barely 15.5 per cent of the operational agricultural land in the state. This is higher than the national average of around 12 per cent but hardly anything to crow about. In the absence of formal recognition as ‘farmers’, women farmers and farm widows who are engaged in every aspect from sowing the field and harvesting to rearing the livestock and poultry have been denied crop insurance, Kisan Credit Cards, and subsidies and benefits because the land records bear the names of their husbands, fathers-in-law, or other male members of the family.
The Devendra Fadnavis-led government must be commended for moving the Bill and ensuring that it received the unanimous assent of the House. It was a long-overdue move. Maharashtra was the first state in India to have brought in the state Women’s Policy in June 1994 when Sharad Pawar was the chief minister. Among other initiatives, it ensured financial and property rights for all women in the state—joint property ownership for land and houses for both spouses being a significant one—which went some distance in securing women’s status. While household land rights were enforced, although fitfully, the lack of specific agricultural land rights left rural women at sea in their work.
The law is a critical first step. Several aspects, from legal to societal, need to be addressed before its impact can be felt. For example, the issuing of a woman farmer certificate cannot be caught in bureaucratic hurdles causing delays, women farmers in crisis zones or farm widows need special recognition, and women’s land ownership must not be dependent on inheritance from the men in the family. The Maharashtra example must be followed by other states; perhaps it is best mandated at the national level. In fact, India’s reputed agricultural theorist, MS Swaminathan, had moved a Private Member’s Bill to this effect in 2011, delinking land ownership from the status of ‘farmer’, but it lapsed in 2013. Maharashtra did well to revive it at the state level; a lot now rides on the implementation.
The Women Farmers Empowerment Bill, the first such proposed legislation in the country, seeks to acknowledge the contribution of women in farming by creating a dedicated fund to help women engaged in agriculture and provide special assistance for single female cultivators.
The bill notes that despite working alongside men from sowing to harvesting and participating in allied activities such as dairy farming and livestock rearing, women have largely remained excluded from institutional benefits because agricultural land is usually registered in the names of male family members, said Agriculture Minister
Recalling the contribution of M S Swaminathan, Bharane said the renowned agricultural scientist had advocated that farmers’ welfare should remain at the centre of agricultural development and had stressed the importance of recognising women’s role in the sector.
The proposed law adopts a broad definition of a “woman farmer”, covering not only crop cultivation but also allied agricultural activities such as animal husbandry. “This definition reflects the rural reality and does justice to the actual contribution of women in agriculture,” he said. The bill provides for the issuance of a Women Farmer identity card, which would enable beneficiaries to access agricultural financial assistance, seeds, fertilisers, e-Kisan inputs, agricultural credit and direct market linkages.
The legislation also proposes the creation of a dedicated fund for women’s empowerment in agriculture, and special assistance for single women farmers, he said.
It is expected that other states will follow in the footsteps of the Maharashtra government
Yours etc.,
Yash Pal Ralhan,
Via email
