Closing the Knowledge Gap for Women in Agriculture

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India has one of the lowest female employment participation rates globally. Women make up only 29 percent of the workforce in India. Scholars have identified an array of reasons behind these low female participation rates. A strictly gendered division of labour means that women bear much of the care burden (such as child and elder care, cooking, cleaning, collecting firewood, maintaining kitchen gardens, and tailoring), leaving little time to pursue paid work outside the home. Socio-cultural norms also prevent women from seeking work outside their homes. For instance, women and girls often need permission from household members before making decisions about education or employment, certain jobs are considered unfit for women, and there are constraints on the time that they can spend outdoors. Moreover, with poor overall job creation in the economy, women are increasingly denied access to the job market.

A strictly gendered division of labour means that women bear much of the care burden, leaving little time to pursue paid work outside the home.

Figure 1: Distribution of Female Employment across Agriculture, Industry and Service Sectors in India (1991-2023)

Source: World Bank Database

However, there is one sector where women dominate, i.e. agriculture. Agriculture in India critically depends on the female workforce. In 2023–24, the share of female workers in agriculture was approximately 64.4 percent, significantly higher than the male participation of 36.3 percent. This preponderance of women in agriculture has often been described in the literature as ‘feminisation of Indian agriculture’. Figure 1 highlights that the percentage of women employed in agriculture in India decreased consistently from 78 percent in 1991 to 54 percent in 2019. However, there was a notable increase in this percentage after 2019. Many economic studies attribute this rise in female employment in agriculture to the health and fiscal crises resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.  Studies—including Nanda, M. and Ghosh, S. (2025) and Leder, S. (2022)—associate feminisation of agriculture with male outmigration and conclude that traditional gender conventions still limit women’s positions. Men and women typically perform different tasks in agriculture. Women are predominantly associated with sowing seeds, transplanting, weeding, farm cleaning, harvesting, irrigation, cleaning produce, and storage. These tasks are intricate and time-consuming, and a crucial aspect of the cultivation and post-harvest process. Such tasks are generally performed manually.

Only 13 percent of rural women who engage in agriculture hold land titles in their names.

Despite the central role of women in agriculture, women enjoy little autonomy in decision-making and income.  Women wage workers in agriculture also receive lower pay compared to their male counterparts. Economist Jayati Ghosh says that despite the prominent role of women in agriculture, they are barely recognised as farmers. Only 13 percent of rural women who engage in agriculture hold land titles in their names. Even in cases of joint registration of land titles, Ghosh posits that women have little to no control over the actual holding. Women farmers also fail to fully access government schemes designed for farmers. For instance, the share of females in the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana was a mere 16 percent for the Rabi (winter) crops in 2024. One of the eligibility criteria is possession of a valid and authenticated land ownership certificate or a valid land tenure agreement. This criterion reduces the scope of a female's entitlement to crop insurance coverage.

Strengthening women farmers—given that agriculture employs the largest share of working women (Figure 1) and depends heavily on the female workforce—serves a dual purpose. First, initiatives reducing gender inequality reach a wider population. Second, it strengthens the agriculture sector, which further enhances food security.

Strengthening women farmers—given that agriculture employs the largest share of working women (Figure 1) and depends heavily on the female workforce—serves a dual purpose.

Interventions to increase insurance coverage among women farmers necessitate major shifts in eligibility criteria, such as insurance coverage entitling the farmer, regardless of the land titles. A primary survey could provide deeper insights into the challenges associated with the insurance coverage for women farmers. Alternatively, greater efforts must be employed to secure land ownership for women. Here, India can take a leaf from Rwanda’s Systematic Land Registration Programme (2009-2013), which registered nearly 19 percent of the country’s agricultural land in women’s names individually and 49 percent jointly.  The programme secured women’s tenure by regularising land ownership. An open-access course by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) mentions that during interviews and focused group discussions for the assessment of the programme, women reported feeling more empowered, exercised increased influence in household decision-making, and felt more confident in asking for bank loans.

The decision-making processes, division of labour, and market involvement of landholding households are deeply influenced by cultural norms and longstanding societal structures. Interventions at these levels necessitate a deeper, longer, and more systematic approach. However, smaller steps are equally important and possess the potential to contribute towards strengthening women in agriculture. One small step is enhancing the capacity of women farmers to access information for women farmers, which requires a multi-faceted approach, such as;

1. Educating women to access and understand agriculture-related information via digital interface: Information services, such as agricultural weather forecasting services, are available through digital interfaces like mobile phones and websites. The reading abilities of the women farmers and their accessibility to mobile phones or computer systems are a concern. Training on accessing and understanding agriculture-related information empowers women farmers to make informed decisions and actions.
2. Involving female agriculture extension workers: A study based on primary information indicates the predominance of male staff in the government’s agriculture services. This often leads to reduced interaction between female farmers and extension workers due to the prevalent gender norms. Female agriculture extension workers are likely to be better placed to communicate with women farmers.
3. Creating a contact database of women farmers: The mobility constraints may be a hindrance for the women farmers if the agricultural information is shared through public meetings. The database will help the extension workers to reach and interact with smaller groups of women farmers.
4. Customised training courses: Skill training courses and meetings for farmers are already in place, which are generally managed by the State Agriculture Departments, Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVK) and State Agricultural Universities. Customising training courses and meetings tailored to the needs of female farmers and ensuring their participation is an important step. There are cases of customised initiatives. For example, Better Life Farming Alliance (BLFA) manages 12 community centres operated by trained women smallholder farmers, providing extension services and inputs to fellow smallholder farmers.

The share of agriculture in India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has been declining. The Union Budget 2025–26 reinstates hope in enhancing the sector performance. Within this hope lies the empowerment of the major workforce in agriculture, the women. The way forward is to ensure that agriculture-related information reaches all women farmers and that they can effectively understand it. Informed women farmers are more likely to make their own choices and better decisions.

 Manjushree Banerjee has been a practitioner and researcher in the domain of energy transition, agricultural economics and sustainability since 2002.

• Gender
• Agriculture
• India
• crop insurance women
• female farmer training
• female workforce India
• gendered labour division
• land ownership India
• rural women farmers
• women empowerment
• women in Indian agriculture

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