Maharashtra Bill Delinks Women Farmer Identity From Land Ownership

Gist In July 2026, Maharashtra passed the Women Farmers' Empowerment Bill, becoming the first Indian state to legally define a "farmer" based on agricultural activity rather than land ownership. This legislation allows women to obtain a 'Woman Farmer Certificate' even if they do not own the land they cultivate. For civil services aspirants, this represents a landmark governance intervention addressing the feminisation of agriculture, ensuring that millions of unrecognised female cultivators can finally access institutional credit, technology, and state welfare schemes. Background Historically, Indian agricultural administration has relied on land revenue records to identify farmers, effectively equating land ownership with cultivation. Because patriarchal inheritance norms result in only a fraction of agricultural land being legally registered in women's names, the majority of female cultivators are structurally classified as unpaid family workers or labourers rather than farmers. Although the National Policy for Farmers 2007 recommended an activity-based, land-delinked definition of a farmer, the concept remained unoperationalised at the statutory level until this state intervention, leaving women locked out of schemes tied to land titles. Key Pointers The traditional reliance on land…