Key takeaways
→ Despite making up almost 50% of the agricultural workforce, women farmers are underacknowledged – in the public imagination, through pay, and access and ownership of resources
→ Women are uniquely challenged by water scarcity due to the responsibility of water collection, so they champion water security, using data and budgets in villages
→ Climate-smart irrigation techniques have also been used in interventions to increase women’s productivity on the farm and reduce drudgery
→ Women farmers are not only powering the farm, but could also power sustainable agriculture and irrigation in India
The state of India’s women farmers
Indian women farmers, as Dr Shraman Jha, CEO of Hindustan Unilever Foundation, put it, are “the best-kept secret of Indian agriculture” — the ones invisible in the public imagination of farming, even if they carry major responsibilities on the field.
Data tells the real story: women make up almost 48% of India’s agricultural workforce. 70.9% of rural women are engaged in farming activities. And yet, only 14% own agricultural land.
Ireena Vittal, a former Partner at McKinsey and Company, and an expert on Indian agriculture, explains why this invisibility persists: “One is just the norms we have on social power. Second, a lot of the women [wives of small farmers] are actually unpaid wage workers in their own plot of land. [But] the land title is not in their name. And when you look at the money that the government gives, it goes to the land owner – the man.”
The working conditions for women in the field are also concerning, marked by exploitation, discrimination, drudgery, and pay gaps – as vast as 60%. A 2019 study, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, adapted the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index, which gauges women’s empowerment across decision-making in production, leadership in community, time spent on work and leisure, control over income, and ownership and access to assets. Conducted across Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Odisha, the results showed that at least 80% of women in agricultural households are disempowered.
Limited access to finances (such as having bank accounts), training and extension services, and technology (even mobile phones!) hamper women farmers’ agency, economic mobility, and societal standing
Fortunately, in value chains such as poultry and dairy, women are more likely to be fairly compensated for their work. In Tamil Nadu, women farmers are paid per chicken per kg. Dairy collectives enable them to gain more knowledge, develop skills, and strengthen their voice.
Ultimately, as Ireena points out, every step-up in decision-making abilities, income, and skills builds women’s confidence, and enables them to aspire more for their children and family. Through collectivisation, they have the opportunity to develop their risk appetite and safety net to create a portfolio of agricultural and allied businesses.
The rise of sustainable agriculture opens up another two-way street of empowerment. The potential of women farmers to champion this cause – through tools, technology, and knowledge – is increasingly coming into focus, while paving a way to enhance their own decision-making and earning capacity. Water security is an interesting example of this.
Can women farmers solve India’s biggest water challenges?
The data around water scarcity and insecurity in India is frightening: by 2030, 40% of Indians are at risk of no drinking water. As the crisis is compounded by climate change, the role of farming communities – given agriculture consumes up to 80% of fresh water – in water security is imperative.
Women are, once again, uniquely affected by water scarcity. In 2018, they were found to spend 45.5 minutes daily on average collecting water for household needs. Another source estimates that millions of Indian women combined spend 150 million workdays per year fetching water.
Dr Shraman Jha illustrates how, when empowered with tools like water data and budgets, women take up the onus of water security quickly and proactively: “I’ve been to villages where these women have been trained. They have their water budgets of their villages, with charts, with numbers, with facts… When you try to poke questions and doubts, you get back pretty confident replies. The amount of respect they get from the rest of the village, including the men folk, that she knows and she’s done it. She’s the authority on water in our village. That’s a huge shift in their social respect and standing.”
With right water data and technology, such as micro-irrigation and smart irrigation, women farmers may become the torchbearers of sustainable agriculture.
Championing climate-resilient agriculture: solar pumps and micro-irrigation
Kaushal Jaiswal describes micro-irrigation as, “irrigating the crop, not the land.” Micro-irrigation enables farmers to provide the right amount of water at the right time, boosting productivity, crop health, and output quality while reducing chances of weeds, saving energy, and leading to higher incomes.
The Government of India’s Per Drop More Crop (PDMC) micro-irrigation scheme provides financial assistance of up to five hectares per beneficiary to install micro-irrigation systems.
Since its inception, the PDMC scheme has brought 115 lakh hectares under micro-irrigation as of July 2026, accounting for about 8.11% of India’s net sown area. In 2025–26, around 20% of the scheme’s beneficiaries were women.
A 2005 study on the effects of micro-irrigation on women found a mixed but instructive picture, shaped largely by land ownership. Women cultivating small plots of land benefited most from adopting micro-irrigation technologies, gaining better access to income and improved family nutrition. Landless women were negatively affected, since the technology reduced their employment opportunities, while women of large cultivator households found it beneficial through a lighter overall workload.
Solar pump irrigation systems are also reshaping women’s agency on the farm, enabling higher crop productivity and diesel savings. Light and portable, they can be carried easily. UNDP’s Decentralised Renewable Energy (DRE) initiative, implemented in Odisha, tells a similar story. Solar-powered irrigation pumps were installed on small plots and registered in the names of women farmers. Reliable irrigation, complementary training, and educational exposure visits enabled these women to expand cultivation by acreage, venture into high-value crops like strawberries, and attempt multi-cropping and crop rotation for the first time. The savings from eliminating diesel costs were reinvested into agricultural inputs, making farming actually profitable for these women farmers.
The Bigger Picture
Women farmers have always been proving their mettle. Now, they are stepping up as champions of water security and climate-resilient agriculture. When empowered with data, technology, knowledge, collective power and opportunities to participate in value chains, they flourish – aspiring more for their families, their villages, and the country.
The task ahead is to close the remaining gaps: land titles, technology access, and widespread value chain participation, so that India’s best-kept secret in agriculture may finally become its most visible strength.
