"Feminisation of Indian agriculture has not been matched by the feminisation of agricultural entitlements." Critically examine with reference to land, credit and extension.

About 80% of rural women work in agriculture and allied sectors [1]. Farm work is increasingly done by women. The entitlements that come with farming are land titles, credit and extension support, and these are still largely tied to men. The statement therefore largely holds. Targeted schemes have recently begun to narrow the gap.

Land: the root deficit

• Women operated only about 11.72% of the total operated area in Agriculture Census 2015-16 [2]. This is the "invisible farmer" problem: women do the work, but the land is recorded in a man's name.
• Rural women are recorded mostly as agricultural labourers (33%) or self-employed farmers (48%), not as owners [1].
• Because PM-KISAN pays only landholders, women get only about 25% of its benefits [1].

Credit: collateral excludes women

• KCC and AIF loans work best for those with land papers. The collateral-free KCC limit was raised to ₹2 lakh in 2025 [1], but without a title women still struggle to get credit.
• FAO finds a 24% productivity gap between women and men on farms of equal size. It links this to insecure tenure and poorer access to credit and training, not to lower ability [3].

Extension: numbers over voice

• Only 1,175 of 10,000 FPOs are all-women. The rule of at least one woman director per FPO can easily become tokenism [1].
• Namo Drone Didi targeted 15,000 drones for women's SHGs. Parliamentary replies report that only about 500 had been given under the scheme [4].
• ATMA counts women "beneficiaries" but does not report whether their income or yields went up [1].

Counter-view: entitlements are being feminised, slowly

• SHG route: women's SHGs have received ₹11 lakh crore+ in credit under DAY-NRLM, and there are 8,190 women-led AIF projects [1].
• Earmarks that do not need a land title: the Pulses Mission reserves at least 20% of funds for women, and AMI gives women a 33.33% subsidy against 25% for others [1].
• Para-extension: 70,000 Krishi Sakhis are being trained, and women beneficiaries under ATMA rose to 11.61 lakh in 2025-26 [1].

Women's share of farm work has grown faster than their share of ownership, credit and decision-making. However, the SHG and earmark models show approaches that work. The next steps are to record women as cultivators in land records, extend title-free earmarks to credit and mechanisation, and give women real decision-making power on FPO boards. In the International Year of the Woman Farmer 2026 [1], this would advance SDG 5, the equality guaranteed by Articles 14–15, and the goal of an inclusive Viksit Bharat @2047.