Women in Food Systems

Despite their central roles, women remain largely invisible within formal agricultural systems. Only 11% of farmland in India is owned by women (source). Land ownership continues to be the gateway to institutional recognition determining access to credit, insurance, subsidies, and extension and tech based services. Without it, women farmers often operate outside the systems.

This invisibility extends to how agricultural solutions are conceived, designed and delivered. Technologies, machinery, and infrastructure are largely designed with male users in mind. Training programmes and extension services are structured around male availability and mobility. Markets engage with those who are formally recognised as producers.

For women, who simultaneously shoulder farming and caregiving responsibilities, these become practical barriers.Despite this, women farmers are not just sustaining agriculture, they are strengthening it. Their approach to farming is often more integrated, linking production with household nutrition, resource conservation, and long-term stability. They are more cautious with spending, more attentive to long-term impacts, and more deliberate in managing uncertainty. 

Women-led self-help groups have demonstrated repayment rates of over 96% (source), reflecting strong financial discipline and accountability. Women-led collectives and farmer producer organisations are diversifying crops, improving resource use, and planning more carefully around risks by investing in resilience. Women-led and mixed-representation FPCs make up only 15 percent and 13 percent of all FPCs, respectively, but have compliance rates 4–13 percent higher than their men-led counterparts (source).

There is also a compelling economic case for investing in women in agriculture. They currently engage in farming with limited access to formal training, technical knowledge, and institutional support. In any other sector, functioning with such a significant portion of the workforce under-equipped would be seen as a structural inefficiency. Yet, Indian agriculture continues to operate this way. And despite the constraints, women farmers are sustaining production. With access to better knowledge, tools, and support, they could significantly improve productivity, efficiency, and outcomes.

This goes to show that if supported with the right resources and information, women farmers have the potential and capacity to further enhance and demonstrate outcomes that are not only economically and ecologically viable but also nutritionally and socially aligned. Investing in women, therefore, is not just about inclusion, it is about unlocking latent potential within the system itself.

Parallely, while access to education and entrepreneurship in agriculture and allied fields is expanding, the sector itself is rarely presented as a profession shaped by science, enterprise, or innovation. Instead, it continues to be associated with hardship rather than opportunity. And so, increasingly, younger women are reluctant to marry into farming households, demonstrating a shift in perception.

Even for women who actively pursue agricultural education, pathways into farming remain unclear. Without access to land, finance, technology or market linkages, building a career in agriculture can feel distant. Within families too, inheritance structures tend to favour sons as successors, while daughters are seldom seen as future farmers.