Half of India’s women farmers recorded as unpaid helpers, report says
New report warns misclassification of women farmers as unpaid helpers is costing India up to 2 trillion Rupees in lost agricultural output each year
Original article: DownToEarth
Half of India’s women working in agriculture are classified as unpaid helpers rather than farmers, a gap that could be costing the country trillions of Indian rupees (INR) in agricultural output every year, according to a new report by grain commerce platform Arya.ag.
The report, Her Harvest 2026: The hidden cost of women’s invisible work in Indian agriculture, says 50.5 per cent of women working in agriculture are recorded as unpaid helpers on family farms, compared with 21.7 per cent of men.
The distinction matters because those not officially recognised often struggle to access formal credit, extension services, procurement systems, input subsidies and other schemes meant for farmers, according to the report.
Agriculture remains the largest employer of women in India. Still according to the report, 64.4 per cent of India’s working women are engaged in agriculture, rising to 76.9 per cent among rural working women. Women also make up about 48 per cent of India’s agricultural workforce.
Their control over land, however, remains limited. Women operate only 11.72 per cent of India’s farmed area and hold 13.96 per cent of operational holdings, according to the report.
This gap between labour and recognition has a measurable economic cost, according to Arya.ag. Applying the Food and Agriculture Organization’s estimate that unequal access to productive resources reduces agricultural output by 2.5-4 per cent to India’s agricultural gross value added of Rs 48.7 lakh crore (48.7 trillion INR), the report estimates annual output losses of Rs 1.2-2 trillion INR.
The problem is not women’s ability but their unequal access to credit, inputs, markets and productive resources. Farms run by women can be 24 per cent less productive than comparable farms run by men, a gap the report links to access constraints rather than skill. Women in agrifood systems earn about 82 rupees for every 100 earned by men, while women farm workers earn 20-30 per cent less for the same work, the report claims.
Prasanna Rao, managing director and chief executive of Arya.ag, said women had always been central to India’s agricultural story, but their contribution needs to translate into greater ownership, income and influence.
The report argues that India need not wait for land titles to change before improving women’s access to finance and markets. It calls for women to be recognised as farmers regardless of whose name is on the land deed, and for more gender-disaggregated data on credit, procurement and farmer producer organisation membership.
Photo credit: M. DeFreese/CIMMYT.
