When a farmer in Vidarbha commits suicide, the grief doesn’t stop at the funeral. The hardest hit is his wife, who worked alongside him in the fields, often from before sunrise until after dark. Unfortunately, it is often overlooked. Her name is not on the property records. To receive compensation, she must navigate a maze of paperwork, government offices and male relatives who may not support her. By the time she realizes what is owed to her, she may already lose the land she has farmed for years.
This isn’t just a single story; It highlights an important problem in Indian agriculture. Women occur approximately 75 percent of all agricultural work in India, according to ICAR data from nine states. They are the ones who sow, weed, harvest, care for animals, process grains and save seeds for the next season. Yet they own less than 14 percent of the agricultural land. This was found in the 2015-16 Agricultural Census 13.87 percent. A decade later, little has changed, even though women continue to do the majority of the work.
They feed the land but own nothing of it. This missing element, a land title in their name, excludes women from almost everything else. Banks want land as collateral; Without it, women are considered risky borrowers and often do not receive loans. PM-KISAN payments go to “landowners”, usually men. Land registry entries are required for crop insurance under PMFBY. In the event of floods or droughts, the aid money goes to those who are registered – and not to the women who actually faced the challenges.
Recent reports suggest that while women’s access to credit has improved in the country, it remains significantly lower. Then a large proportion often take loans from local moneylenders at high interest rates. This system is often referred to as a credit system, but it works more like a trap.
Workers pick chillies from the fields in Gabbur, Raichur district, Karnataka, India. Image from Asian Development Bank via Flickr
Between 1995 and 2023 more than 3.9 lakh farmers and farm workers have died by suicide. Behind each of these statistics is a family, and all too often behind those families is a woman who has to take on everything and has very little to offer.
In these cases, wives inherit the debts, but rarely the land. Common practices, sometimes formalized, sometimes not, typically mean that sons inherit property. State government compensation of Rs 3 to 4 lakh, if available, often gets stuck in bureaucracy or is diverted by male relatives. A study from 2017 A study by the Housing and Land Rights Network of 157 widows on farms in Vidarbha found that those attempting to claim inheritance rights faced intense social and economic pressure through threats of eviction, intimidation toward their children at school, and loss of food support from their in-laws. The land was lost before the paperwork was even filed.
The Hindu Succession Act, amended in 2005, grants daughters equal rights to family property. The Supreme Court clarified in 2020 that these rights arise by birth and not by marriage or registration. This is a solid legal basis, but it is largely disconnected from reality.
Over the years, several government efforts have talked about increasing women’s ownership of land and assets. But on the ground the gap remains large. Women still make up a large portion of the agricultural workforce, but in many parts of rural India land records are still overwhelmingly male. Politics promised inclusion, but personal responsibility remained largely beyond women’s reach.
Climate change is an issue of women’s land rights
During droughts, men often leave to find wage work while women stay behind. Without land titles, these women have no legal right to disaster relief. The World Bank has reported this again and again Women farmers produce 20 to 30 percent less than mennot because of a lack of skills, but because they are systematically excluded from access to quality irrigation technology and agricultural extension services.
This issue goes beyond the current agricultural crisis, as climate change will worsen these problems and hit women the hardest.
The term “feminization of agriculture” used to describe this change sounds like progress. That’s not it. This means that women are taking on the risks of climate failure without having the rights necessary to address those risks.
The Farm Protests: The Role of Women Hidden in the Shadows
The farmers’ protest in Delhi in 2020 and 2021 marked a pivotal moment for women’s involvement in agriculture in India. On International Women’s Day 2021 there are around 40,000 Women from regions like Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh came together to advocate for farmers’ rights. These women played a crucial role, running community kitchens that fed tens of thousands of protesters and energized the movement and cultural strength.
Despite their significant contributions, women were noticeably absent from the crucial negotiations that led to the repeal of the controversial farm laws in November 2021.
The leadership of the central Kisan Sabha was overwhelmingly men, and key issues important to women, such as equal pay, land rights and maternity benefits for agricultural workers, were not included in the final agreements.
This situation is not new. Time and time again, women stand together in crises, but when it comes to making real decisions, they are often sidelined.
Achieve real change
The reasons why women are often invisible in agriculture lie deep in laws, traditions, bureaucracy and political indifference. To change this, we need to address these issues on multiple fronts.
One step could be to make joint titling mandatory and ensure that women’s names are included in land records, rather than making it optional. Kerala has successfully implemented this; The question now is whether other states can be encouraged to do the same. We also urgently need legal literacy campaigns for rural women to raise awareness of their inheritance rights under the 2005 Act.
Expanding access to Kisan credit cards based on documented labor contributions, rather than just land ownership, could open up the financial world to many women who are currently excluded.
In addition, a significant proportion of climate adaptation funds are redirected there Women-led farming groups could play a crucial role in bridging the resource gap that promotes various forms of exclusion.
Women’s access to land in agricultural communities can lead to significant improvements in various areas, including poverty reduction, higher child survival rates, reduced domestic violence and higher agricultural productivity.
Women have been crucial to India’s food security for years, yet they often miss out on compensation, loans and aid that flow through systems that overlook them. While farmer suicides represent a glaring crisis, the struggles of women who often silently support farms and families represent a quieter but equally significant crisis that goes unnoticed.