Women Farmers in India: Maharashtra’s Law and the Recognition Gap

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• Picture a farmer. The image that comes to mind is usually of a man. But the reality on India’s farms is increasingly female. 
• This mismatch between perception and reality stems from decades-old practices of collecting data, designing policy, and defining who counts as a “farmer.” It renders millions of working women nearly invisible. 

• In July 2026, Maharashtra passed the Women Farmers’ Empowerment Bill, seeking to change this. Maharashtra’s move is well-timed. 
• The United Nations has designated 2026 as the International Year of the Woman Farmer. The state has positioned itself as a potential first mover, paving the way for others.

What the Maharashtra Act Does

• The Act grants women independent recognition as farmers, irrespective of land ownership, through a “Woman Farmer Certificate.”
• It recognises women engaged in agriculture for at least one agricultural season a year, regardless of the nature of the land.
• It explicitly covers categories such as landless cultivators, landless livestock rearers, agricultural labourers, plantation labourers, and pastoralists.
• This creates a route for women without land titles to gain an independent agricultural identity and access welfare schemes and credit.

Historical Significance

• This is the first Indian State legislation to give enforceable legal form to the activity-based, land-delinked definition of “farmer” that the National Policy for Farmers, 2007 had proposed but never operationalised. 
• It is described as the culmination of three decades of women farmers’ movements backed by civil society.
• Earlier state efforts had made partial progress: Kerala’s Kudumbashree collectives enabled group farming for women, and Odisha’s KALIA scheme reached landless and sharecropper women. 
• But a women farmers’ registry delinked from land records was missing until now.

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The Scale of the Recognition Gap

• Women’s role in Indian agriculture has grown sharply, but recognition has not kept pace.
  • In 2025, agriculture employed roughly 110 million women and 127 million men (rural, PLFS/Census-adjusted) — bringing the sector close to gender parity.
  • Women’s agricultural workforce has more than doubled since 2017–18.
  • Nearly three-quarters of rural women workers are now in agriculture, compared with less than half of men.
• Yet most of this work goes unrecognised and unpaid:
  • In 2025, over 41% of female agricultural workers were unpaid, against 20% of men.
  • Nearly 63% of men were own-account workers, compared with 39% of women.

The Worker-Owner Dichotomy

• The core structural problem is this: women largely work on family land without owning it or having their name on records, due to patriarchal land-titling norms.
• Only 14% of operational agricultural landholdings are held by women (Agricultural Census, 2015–16).
• Since the person named in land records is the one counted in databases and given benefits, women’s contribution remains statistically invisible.
• Because most states use land revenue records as their “source of truth” for administrative purposes, this bias is carried forward into scheme access.
• The consequence is concrete exclusion from credit, subsidies, technology and extension services. 
• For instance, only 23% of PM-KISAN beneficiaries are women, despite the scheme providing ₹6,000/year to landholding farmer families.

What the Data Reveals Across States

• A comparison of women’s workforce share versus their scheme-beneficiary share exposes sharp gaps.
• Even in states where women form over 50% of the agriculture workforce, their share of beneficiaries is often below one-third.
• Exceptions: Meghalaya (women are 70% of PM-KISAN beneficiaries) and Kerala (44%) stand out — explained by matrilineal/customary tenure systems in the Northeast and Kudumbashree-style collective farming in Kerala.
• Widest gaps: In Jammu & Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh, women form nearly two-thirds of the workforce but represent only a small fraction of beneficiaries.
• The pattern is telling: the binding constraint is not land itself, but the identification system built on land records. Where land records act as gatekeeper, women get filtered out. Where an alternative mechanism exists, their access rises sharply.

From Recognition to Real Access

• Passing a law is only the first step. Several implementation challenges remain:
  • Identification mechanism: Women must be registered either through self-registration or identification by the Gram Sabha, including those with no land titles in their name. This will require a strong information campaign.
  • Database integration: The Act creates a new database of women farmers. Linking it with existing agricultural databases — while avoiding duplication or exclusion — is a significant administrative task.
  • Standardisation across states: A common system for definitions, certificate issuance, and database maintenance would allow women farmers’ identities to be linked seamlessly across schemes, avoiding multiple registrations.
  • Agri Stack integration: Certificates must be linked to the Agri Stack — the Union Agriculture Ministry’s digital platform — and Farmer IDs issued to women, integrating them into the broader digital agricultural ecosystem.
  • Sustained local outreach: Recognition translates into empowerment only if continuous local efforts make women aware of schemes and actively help them access benefits.

Conclusion

• Women already do the work; the law has simply been slow to see them. Maharashtra’s Act finally separates the identity of a farmer from the ownership of land. But a certificate on paper means little without databases, digital integration and sustained outreach behind it. 
• Real empowerment will be measured not in legislation, but in how many women actually reach the schemes meant for them.

Source: TH