Women in Indian agriculture earn 20 to 30 per cent less than men for identical tasks, taking home just ~82 for every ~100 earned by male workers, according to Her Harvest 2026: The Hidden Cost of Women’s Invisible Work in Indian Agriculture, a report by grain commerce platform Arya.ag.
The disparity extends beyond wages. Despite performing more than half of farm work, women operate just 11.72 per cent of the farmed area, revealing a fivefold gap between their contribution to agriculture and their control over land. Women-run farms are also 24 per cent less productive, resulting in an estimated 2.5 to 4 per cent output loss for India’s ~48.7 trillion farm economy, the report said. It also pegs the annual loss at ~1.2-2 trillion — not because women farm less efficiently, but because they farm with fewer resources.
The stakes are rising as more rural women depend on agriculture for work. Nearly 77 per cent of rural working women now work in agriculture, with their share of the agricultural workforce rising from 57 per cent in 2017-18 to more than 64 per cent in 2023-24.
Yet, women remain largely invisible in the formal agricultural system. Land ownership determines who is recognised as a farmer and who gets access to credit, extension services, and procurement. As men increasingly migrate to cities and non-farm sectors, women are taking on greater responsibility for farm operations. However, nearly 47.7 per cent of women working in agriculture are recorded as unpaid helpers on family farms, compared with 20.2 per cent of men.
This creates a cycle of exclusion: women who are not recognised as farmers struggle to access formal credit, which limits their ability to buy inputs or secure storage. This, in turn, can force distress sales at harvest, resulting in lower incomes and leaving women with little capacity to accumulate assets.
Closing this gap could therefore deliver gains well beyond women’s incomes. The report identifies three areas — resources, recognition, and returns — as key to unlocking that potential. Providing women with equal access to resources could lift yields on women-run farms by 20-30 per cent, while increasing women’s harvest incomes could raise overall household incomes by 20-30 per cent. “A rupee earned by a woman farmer does double work. It raises output now and resilience later,” the report said.
There are already signs of what greater access can deliver. Under the Namo Drone Didi scheme, about 15,000 women-led self-help groups are being equipped with agricultural drones, enabling trained operators to earn ~60,000 to ~80,000 a month.
Building on such initiatives, the report calls for four measures to close the gender gap in agriculture. First, women should be formally recognised as farmers irrespective of land ownership, with gender-disaggregated data published on access to credit, procurement, and farmer producer organisation (FPO) membership.
Second, financial access should be expanded by scaling up collateral-light credit, warehouse receipts, and women-held Kisan Credit Card accounts. Third, drones, advisory services and market technology should be routed directly through women-run institutions. Finally, the report recommends building women-led FPOs as permanent market institutions rather than treating them as pilot projects.
The United Nations has declared 2026 the International Year of the Woman Farmer. The report argues that recognising women’s role in agriculture and giving them equal access to land, finance, technology, and markets could help unlock a sizeable share of India’s untapped farm output.
Figures in the report were drawn from public datasets and cited institutional sources, including the Food and Agriculture Organization, Periodic Labour Force Survey 2023-24, Agriculture Census 2015-16, Press Information Bureau releases, International Labour Organization, United States Department of Agriculture, International Finance Corporation, United Nations Development Programme, Arya.ag partnership materials, and Arya.ag disclosures as of June.
