Women form the majority of India's agricultural workforce yet remain invisible as 'farmers'. Examine the causes of the feminisation of Indian agriculture and suggest measures to convert women's labour into ownership and agency.

Women make up 59.8% of India's agricultural workforce (PLFS 2025) [1]. Yet in 2026, the UN International Year of the Woman Farmer, they are still seen as workers on the field rather than as farmers on the land record. Feminisation has raised their share of the labour. It has not given them land, credit or a voice in decisions.

Labour  ──────────►  Cultivation  ──────────►  Control of land
59.8% of farm        30.3% of cultivators      ~11.7% of operated area
workforce [1]        (Census 2011) [2]         (Agri Census 2015-16) [3]

Fig: Women's share shrinks at each step (different surveys; shows direction only)

Causes of feminisation and invisibility

• Male out-migration: low farm incomes push men into non-farm jobs. Women are left to run farms they do not own.
• Patriarchal land transfer: the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005 gave daughters equal inheritance rights, but land records still rarely carry the names of wives or daughters.
• Benefits tied to land title: credit and schemes ask for proof of land. FAO links weak land rights to lower farm investment and less use of technology [4].
• Reached through SHGs, not as farmers: 4.6 crore+ Mahila Kisans are reached as SHG members under DAY-NRLM, a Rural Development Ministry scheme [5]. They are not registered as farmers in the agriculture ministry's own systems.
• Missing from the data: the latest land data broken down by sex dates from 2015-16 [3], and unpaid family work goes uncounted.
• Lower output and pay: on farms of equal size, women produce 24% less because they get fewer inputs. In paid farm work they earn 82 cents for every dollar men earn [6].

Measures: from labour to ownership and agency

• Ownership: States should require joint husband-wife titles and update land records within a fixed time after inheritance.
• Recognition: publish the results of the 11th Agriculture Census [7] by sex, State and tribal status, and report on SDG 5.a.1 (women's land rights) [4] for the review of the International Year of the Woman Farmer.
• Convergence: register every SHG Mahila Kisan as a farmer in the agricultural extension, Kisan Credit Card and crop-insurance databases.
• Agency: hire more women extension staff and bring more women into leadership of Farmer Producer Organisations. Mahila Kisan Diwas 2026 stresses value addition and agri-enterprises led by women [1].
• Accountability: turn the yearly Mahila Kisan Diwas into a scorecard that tracks women's land, credit and income.

Feminisation of agriculture comes from rural distress and continues because land and data systems leave women out. Closing gender gaps in farming could add nearly USD 1 trillion to global GDP and lift 45 million people out of food insecurity [6], so this is a growth agenda, not just welfare. Turning women's labour into land titles, credit and a voice will advance SDGs 2 and 5. It will also deliver the 2026 vision of women farmers building a Viksit Bharat [1].