LEGAL PROTECTION OF WOMEN FARMERS: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS

The agricultural economy of India is based on women who contribute significantly to the farming sector, livestock handling, processing after harvest, seed conservation as well as other farming activities. Nevertheless, they are legally invisible because of institutional impediments and structural and systemic forms of discrimination embedded in patriarchy, unfair land tenure, discriminatory policy frameworks and misdirected institutional support. Despite constitutional provisions, legislative safeguards, welfare programs, and enlightened legal decisions, women farmers continue to face structural discrimination in access to credit, ownership, crop insurance, market access, and decision making organizations. The research paper critically examines legal protection of women farmers in India through constitutional, statutory, administrative and judicial approaches. It also discusses the differences between laws and practice, socio-cultural obstacles to gender equality in agriculture and the changes required to achieve a gender-equal agrarian system. The discussion shows that the genuine empowerment of women farmers would be achieved through legalization and land rights, as well as through the shift to gender-sensitive agricultural governance, supported by imposing laws, institutional change, and targeted actions.