Indian agriculture has been feminised. The Periodic Labour Force Survey of 2024 confirmed that women now constitute over 42% of India’s agricultural workforce. Statistics confirm that the women’s work participation has risen from 24.8% in 2017 to 42% in 2023. Increasing male migration and shrinking farm returns have seen women step in to manage farms, livestock and farm households.

Women farmers facing mounting challenges

Sadly, these women farm workers are working against great odds. They receive little governmental support, forced as they are to bear the brunt of extreme weather events, including heat waves, floods and droughts that are leaving large tracts of agricultural land degraded and unusable.

Impact of land diversion and development projects

The last decade has seen these women face another more insidious threat: huge tracts of forest and agricultural land have been diverted for non-forestry, mining, hydropower and road construction. The Parliament was informed in 2025 that over 1.73 lakh hectares of forest land had been diverted between 2014 and 2024 for mining, roads and other infrastructure projects. Four million hectares of prime agricultural land have also been lost for such projects.

Such large-scale diversion of land has impacted agricultural productivity, though few statistics are available on just how much the productivity levels have dipped. What is known is that the diversion of fertile land has forced women to farm on less productive, marginal or barren land, thereby reducing yields and income. Women agricultural workers complain that this trend, along with land fragmentation, is making it difficult for them to hold on to their agricultural jobs even when it means earning little more than a daily wage.

Invisible workforce without land ownership

The problem is compounded by the fact that in the majority........

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