From field to market: The farmer without a title

A year unclaimed: The United Nations has declared 2026 the International Year of the Woman Farmer. On September 30, the Bharatiya Kisan Sangh brings women farmers to Delhi to demand recognition. Maharashtra legislated in July to certify women as farmers irrespective of land ownership. PLFS 2025 places 59.8% of India's 20 crore women workers in agriculture: about 12 crore women, or 45% of all farm workers. Yet the last Agriculture Census recorded only 13.96% of holdings and 11.72% of area in women's names. Her share of the work is 3.2 times her share of the land, and her holding is 16% smaller than average.

Work without a title: Title decides everything downstream. PM-KISAN's 23rd instalment reached over 2.18 crore women out of 9.44 crore beneficiaries: 23%, half their share of the workforce. Self-employed women earned Rs 6,374 a month in 2025, compared with Rs 17,914 for men, 36 paise per rupee. FAO finds that women-managed farms of equal size yield 24% less, owing to gaps in inputs, knowledge and time, not skill. On women-operated land alone, closing that gap lifts national farm output by 2.9%, by my calculation.

Schemes: wide, thin: The architecture exists. DAY-NRLM has organised 10.05 crore women into 90 lakh self-help groups; 3.01 crore are Lakhpati Didis, 30% of members, and the 6 crore target for March 2029 means six in ten. Mahila Kisan Sashaktikaran Pariyojana has reached 4.62 crore women, 39% of women farm workers. But scale thins where capital begins. Women received about 7% of Agriculture Infrastructure Fund projects and under 4% of its Rs 66,310 crore sanctioned; their average project, Rs 29 lakh, is half the Rs 58 lakh norm. Namo Drone Didi targeted 15,000 groups; 1,094 drones, 7.3%, have been delivered, only 500 through the scheme. Agri-clinics trained 82,776 by 2022 and set up 36,265 ventures 44%, yet qualification-gated entry excludes the Krishi Sakhi advising her village.


Also read | Cultivation of large cardamom emerges as a lucrative option for higher income from limited land

The loss she can cut: NABCONS 2022 pegged post-harvest losses at Rs 1.53 lakh crore a year, 1.5 times the entire Rs 1 lakh crore Fund, with cereals losing up to 5.92%, vegetables 11.61, and fruit 15.05. My own estimate is that women perform over 70% of post-harvest work: threshing, winnowing, drying, sorting, grading, storing, processing. This is a claim about position, not aptitude. She handles the produce first, spots the sweating sack, and already sits in groups that aggregate. A 10% cut in losses saves Rs 15,300 crore, twelve times Drone Didi's Rs 1,261 crore outlay.

The arithmetic for 2047: Viksit Bharat runs through her. NITI Aayog notes that agriculture employs 46% of workers but yields 19.73% of national income: 29 paise per farm worker for every rupee off the farm. The stated goal is 70% female participation by 2047; PLFS 2025 shows 40.0%, against 79.1% for men. That requires 1.4 points a year for 22 years. Time is the constraint: NSO's 2024 survey finds women spend 289 minutes daily on unpaid domestic work, against 88 for men, and 44.4% of women outside the labour force cite childcare or home-making. Even at 2025's earnings pace, she reaches only 63 paise on the rupee by 2047.

Recognise her: Make Maharashtra's Woman Farmer Certificate national, and link it to a Farmer ID to unlock Kisan Credit Cards, insurance and PM-KISAN without a land title, as NITI Aayog has urged. Make joint titling the default in irrigation and consolidation projects, and publish gender-disaggregated credit and scheme data annually.

Also read | Centre beats March 2027 target, issues 11 crore unique farmer IDs under AgriStack

Build for her: Ring-fence a third of the Fund and marketing-infrastructure subsidies for women-run solar dryers, cold rooms, graders and warehouse-receipt finance, and extend the Pulses Mission's 20% women's floor to every crop mission. Attach crèches, clean toilets, drinking water and lighting to every mandi, custom-hiring centre and collection point, and deploy ICAR-CIWA's drudgery-reducing tools through these centres.

Seat her: Guarantee that a third of seats on FPO boards, marketing committees, cooperatives, water-user associations and district agricultural committees are reserved for women; today's rule promises each FPO one. Convert the 70,000 Krishi Sakhis being trained into certified agri-clinic entrepreneurs, with a credit-linked subsidy, reserved quotas and post-harvest advisory as a core service.

What she must do: Organise, upskill, and move up the chain. Join or lead FPOs; earn drone-pilot and grading certificates; sell processed, graded, traceable produce rather than raw grain, using smartphone grading, sensor-based storage, and shared drones so a village's records travel to buyers. Each step lifts her from 29 paise towards a rupee.

The test: A woman who does 45% of the farming on 14% of the land is not a beneficiary; she is an unpriced asset. Set a public, dated target: raise women's share of scheme benefits from 23% to a third by 2028, with results published annually by sex. Can India turn a UN year into a delivery year? Only the numbers will tell.