Women drive India’s agriculture, constitute 60% of workforce

Women accounted for nearly 60 per cent of workforce in agricultural sector during the calendar year 2025.

In a written reply in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday, Ramnath Thakur, Union Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, said females constituted 59.8 per cent of the total workforce engaged in the agricultural activities during 2025 (January-December) across the country.

Citing the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) conducted by the Union Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation for this data, he said 41.1 per cent female workers were engaged in self employed category in agriculture during the same period.

Referring to the PM-KISAN scheme, which provides ₹6,000 per year to all eligible farmers through direct benefit transfer without gender discrimination, he said it has significantly benefited women farmers ensuring transparent and direct financial support to strengthen their income and participation in agriculture. A total of 2,18,66,774 women beneficiaries received benefits under the 23rd instalment of the scheme.

Stating that the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojna (PMFBY) provides for comprehensive risk insurance against crop damage from pre-sowing to post-harvest for crops and area notified by the concerned State government, he said 21 per cent female farmers enrolled under the scheme during 2024-25.

Agri land

To a separate query on agricultural land, Thakur, who quoted the Land Use Statistics 2024-25, said that the gross cropped area has expanded from 198.28 million hectares in 2014-15 to 225.19 million hectares in 2024-25.

Stating that the adoption of modern technologies and effective policy interventions helped in the continuous improvement in cropping intensity, he said cropping intensity has risen from 142.2 per cent in 2014-15 to 159.7 per cent in 2024-25, reflecting a positive shift toward multiple cropping practices, highlighting farmers’ enhanced ability to cultivate the same land more than once annually.

Traditional agri

To another separate question on the promotion of traditional agricultural produce and seeds, the Minister said ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) is implementing 13 dedicated research projects, supported by ICAR, DBT and DST, for characterisation, evaluation and utilisation of indigenous germ plasm, landraces and wild relatives in crops such as wheat, rice, maize, sesame, lentil, cucumber and tomato. The projects focus on agro-biodiversity, germ plasm evaluation, molecular breeding, genomics and genome editing for developing improved, climate resilient and disease-resistant crop varieties.

At ICAR-IARI, research on improving the traditional Basmati varieties has led to the development of improved Pusa Basmati rice varieties that account for dominant share of India’s Basmati exports, he said.

Two high yielding varieties — Pusa Narendra KN1 and Pusa CRD KN2 — have been released targeting specific Geographical Indication areas in eastern Uttar Pradesh, promising improved yield and non-lodging trait against the traditional landrace ‘Kalanamak’, he said.

Tobacco exports

To a question on the export of tobacco products, Piyush Goyal, Union Minister for Commerce and Industry, said India is the second largest producer of tobacco in the world after China.

Over the last 10 years, the exports of tobacco and tobacco products have increased from 240.93 million kg valued at ₹6,450.66 crore ($958.68 million) to 368.85 million kg valued at ₹17,192.04 crore ($1,948.98 million), registering an increase of about 53.10 per cent in quantity and about 166.51 per cent in value terms.

The average price realised by Flue-Cured Virginia (FCV) tobacco farmers has increased from ₹134.43 per kg to ₹251.14 per kg, an increase of 86.82 per cent, over the past 10 years, he added.

Published on July 28, 2026