When one hears of a farmer who is toiling in the fields and grazing cattle all day long, sowing the fields, weeding the soil, harvesting despite the heat, the image is of a male farmer. In fact this is also a description of a Women Farmer’s Day; In fact, he has the additional responsibility of cooking and taking care of the family. This is the life of lakhs of women farmers of the country. Yet, when we hear ‘farmer’, we always imagine a man. This is a fundamental problem that has penetrated even into our legal-administrative systems. When a woman farmer goes to the gram panchayat or tehsildar office to apply for crop insurance or obtain a Kisan Credit Card or claim direct transfer benefits, she is told that she is not a ‘farmer’ because the land records are in the name of her husband or father-in-law or other male members of the family.
Recently on July 1, the Maharashtra Government tabled the ‘Maharashtra Women Farmers Empowerment Bill, 2026’ (Draft Bill) in the Assembly. This is a good opportunity to consider why we need the Bill and what one can expect from it. According to the Periodic Labor Force Survey 2024, more than 42% of India’s agricultural workforce is women. This is almost double the 24.8% recorded in 2017. This reflects a profound structural change in Indian agriculture, now often referred to as the “feminization of agriculture”. Rural men are increasingly migrating to urban centers for non-agricultural employment and thus women are left to manage the rural economy. Yet the ownership of the land remains the same. The Agriculture Census 2015-16 found that only 13.9% of the operational holdings were in the name of women. In Maharashtra, more than 88% of rural women are engaged in agriculture, the highest compared to any major Indian state, while only 10% of land is owned by women. Its consequences are more than symbolic. Indian agriculture policy, from Kisan Credit Cards to crop-insurance schemes to the PM-Kisan income-support programme, has been largely designed around land-record eligibility. Thus, this ownership gap directly translates into exclusion from institutional support and welfare measures for farmers. And when a farmer in Vidarbha or Marathwada dies by suicide, his widow, who has been single-handedly managing the land for years, is often unable to claim compensation or a loan in her own right because there is no document in the revenue office confirming his existence as a farmer.
The first attempt to solve this problem was made in 2011 by MS Swaminathan, the architect of the Green Revolution. She brought the Women Farmers’ Rights Bill, 2011 as a private member’s bill in the Rajya Sabha. This separated land ownership from the status of ‘farmer’. It proposed a land title independent definition of “farmer” to include operational holders, landless cultivators, tenant farmers, sharecroppers and pastoralists. A Woman Farmer Certificate was to be issued by the Gram Panchayat as proof of farmer status for all administrative and judicial purposes. This created the legal presumption of co-ownership of the husband’s land with equal land and water rights. However, the bill expired on 10 April 2013 without any substantive debate. No government has adopted it, amended it, or introduced a replacement.
The United Nations and FAO have designated 2026 as the International Year of the Female Farmer, launching a global mobilization around land ownership, credit access, technology and training. On March 13, 2026, the National Commission for the Rights and Welfare of Women Farmers Bill, 2026 was introduced in the Rajya Sabha, reviving Swaminathan’s framework with two key reforms: it creates a permanent National Commission to monitor the rights of women farmers and it adds a portability clause that allows a migrant agricultural laborer to register as a farmer in the state where he actually works. However, this is again a private member’s bill, introduced by Kerala MP Santosh Kumar P. There is no indication whether it is to be adopted as a bill, or referred to a standing committee, or even formally debated in this session.
Therefore, in this backdrop, the legislative measure by Maharashtra assumes even greater importance, although its impact will be limited to the state unlike earlier measures which were taken at the national level.
The draft bill is a government bill to be introduced in the ongoing monsoon session of the Maharashtra Legislature.
Although the draft bill has not yet been made public, the official communication on the bill states that it will provide independent legal recognition as farmers to women farmers by expanding the definition of ‘agriculture’ and ‘farmer’. It appears that these definitions will cover allied sectors including dairy farming, fisheries, poultry, animal husbandry, sericulture, beekeeping and collection of minor forest produce. The bill also aims to improve access to credit, technology, markets, crop insurance, agricultural subsidies and social security benefits. The proposed framework will also support landless farmers, tenant farmers, agricultural laborers and migrant agricultural workers. Additionally, an integrated digital database of women farmers and a State Mahila Kisan Kosh are also proposed. Importantly, women should get statutory recognition as independent farmers, whether or not their names appear in 7/12 citations, Maharashtra land-record documents indicating ownership and crop details.
These are all good measures and if implemented will advance the agenda of women’s land rights. At the same time, it is important for the draft Bill to address some of the shortcomings historically identified in the context of granting land rights to women.
First of all, the Women Farmer Certificate should become a gateway and not a barrier. The draft bill reportedly envisages the issuance of a woman farmer certificate by gram sabhas and urban local bodies with an appeal mechanism for rejected applications. To ensure that the issuing authorities do not exercise arbitrary powers, it would be prudent to restrict too much discretion in the process of granting certificates. Instead, it would be helpful if the issuance process is streamlined and based on easily ascertainable criteria so that any woman engaged in agriculture or allied activities is able to obtain a certificate. Further, the certificate should be automatically linked to scheme enrollment (KCC, PM-Kisan, Crop Insurance, MKSP) through a single, digital, panchayat-level process that is proactively offered to women. It should be a rights-based entitlement rather than a welfare measure.
Second, the Bill needs to introduce adequate mechanisms to encourage land ownership by women. Women’s rights to land are defined primarily through their relationships with male family members. This needs to change. If the Bill relies on inheritance as the primary mechanism for women to acquire agricultural land, it will create the same gap between rights on paper and rights in practice as happened with the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005. Families informally and persistently pressure women to give up their claims. The Bill should mandatorily and automatically include the farmer’s spouse in the 7/12 quota. Complementary mechanisms such as group land-lease cooperative societies, subsidized joint ownership for couples registering land for the first time, land redistribution to women-headed households under existing government land-reform allocations, all need to be part of the framework.
Third, there should be special provisions for women farming in distressed areas. In particular, the most pressing area of ​​the bill is agricultural widows in Vidarbha and Marathwada. These women are already the sole operators of their land, but their names appear nowhere in any revenue records and thus they cannot access drought relief, crop-insurance payments or loan restructuring. For them, legal recognition is a necessity for survival. Thus, there is a need for a specific provision in the applicable rules to ensure automatic transfer of agricultural scheme rights within a specified period along with a specific complaint mechanism for widows of farmers.
Finally, the implementation should be monitored by a third party who has an interest in catching failures. At present, the Bill proposes to appoint Women Farmer Assistance Officers from among the existing officers at the district and taluka level. They will help in obtaining certification, accessing welfare schemes and adopting better farming practices. While a dedicated officer would be helpful, third party monitoring could ensure better accountability. Interested civil society organizations with grassroots reach can serve this purpose by finding out where certificates are not being issued, where banks are still denying loans to women, and where scheme benefits are still going to male relatives. Additionally, there should be a statutory obligation to publish data related to women farmers, including changes in 7/12 extracts in favor of women, direct benefits transferred to women farmers under various schemes, crop insurance, loan restructuring, enrollment under PM-Kisan, etc. Regular monitoring and audit can lead to effective implementation.
The distinct advantage of any State Bill on agriculture and land is that the State has its own delivery machinery. We can truly claim to celebrate the International Year of Women Farmers in 2026 only if rights-based entitlements in favor of women farmers are statutorily mandated. Law is only the first step, not the destination. The Maharashtra Bill and the National Bill, if ever examined, will not come before the Legislature. It will come at the revenue office in Nanded, at the KCC counter in Amravati, or at the gram panchayat meeting in Osmanabad, where a widow who has been cultivating her land alone for many years is finally told by a certificate in her hand that the law has ended her life. Nonetheless, the draft Bill is an important first step in that direction and the State of Maharashtra should be commended for taking this step.
This article is written by Malini Mallikarjuna, Head of Bhusampada, NIAS, and Girija Bhosale, Research Coordinator.
