BHUBANESWAR: In a first in the country, the Odisha government has developed a comprehensive policy framework in the form of a ‘declaration’ to recognise women farmers as architects of resilience, guardians of living heritage and champions of sustainable agriculture.
The ‘Bhubaneswar Declaration on Women Farmers and Conservation of Agricultural Heritage’ (accessed by The New Indian Express) will act as a blueprint for gender transformation, biodiversity revival and restoration of agricultural heritage in the state at a time when the United Nations is celebrating 2026 as the International Year of the Woman Farmer (IYWF).
Women play a central role in agrifood systems in Odisha as the fairer sex constitutes around 54 per cent of the agricultural workforce. They contribute to all stages of value chains, whether it is preserving seeds, cultivating crops, processing, or trade.
The state's rich cultural diversity is blended with its diverse food systems and women stand at the heart of these biodiverse ecosystems, balancing farming with seed conservation, foraging and ecological restoration. However, their contributions often go unrecognised and barely 13 per cent of farmland owners are women.
The declaration formulated by the Agriculture and Farmers’ Empowerment (A&FE) department has outlined several major areas of action, including access and control over resources, agro-biodiversity conservation, agricultural heritage restoration, health and nutrition, agricultural mechanisation, research and innovation, value chain advancement, extension and capacity-building and awareness generation, besides the policy coherence. The document, based on insights and suggestions from various government and independent agencies, stressed the need to enhance women’s access to and control over resources by encouraging families to register land in women's names, ensuring joint or independent ownership, and addressing the specific needs of single women farmers.
It emphasises the importance of supporting women with Forest Rights Act titles and enabling them to access relevant agricultural schemes. Recognising the challenges faced by women-led cooperatives and Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs), the government has committed to provide at least five years of technical and financial handholding to strengthen their capacity and support improved access to grants, microfinance and low-collateral credit facilities to promote women’s economic empowerment.
A substantial part of the declaration focuses on agrobiodiversity conservation, calling for the identification and promotion of indigenous technical knowledge related to seed selection, cropping systems, traditional food processing and nutritional profiling of landraces. It also aims to promote neglected and underutilised crops, backed by targeted subsidies, legal protection and transparent benefit-sharing mechanisms for women custodians of biodiversity.
“Heritage conservation will find a place in school-level curricula and biodiversity registers will be developed in collaboration with national and state biodiversity authorities. Scientific research on the cultivation practices, cropping systems and bio-inputs related to landraces and traditional varieties will be supported to improve income and nutritional outcomes with special focus on gender and agrobiodiversity,” read the declaration.
Women-centric agricultural mechanisation is another key component as the state plans to prioritise the development and ergonomic testing of tools and machinery suited to women’s needs. It also encourages women’s representation by at least 33 per cent in agriculture boards, cooperatives, user associations and relevant departments to promote inclusive decision-making. Principal secretary of A&FE, Arabinda Padhee, said Odisha is known for the feminisation of agriculture, as the farm workforce here is dominated by women. It has also pioneered in prioritising gender neutrality.
This declaration unveiled for the first time in India suggests the inclusivity of women farmers in the agricultural development agenda. It has been shared with different national and international organisations and institutions. Rest of India can now follow the Odisha model, he said.
“We are also the first to open a gender responsive cell in the department, which will design the upcoming programmes, schemes and projects with a gender lens, although mapping all these initiatives with a climate lens has been the practice earlier. Gender will be our top focus now,” Padhee added.
Once the world relied on more than 30,000 edible plant species, though only about 7,000 of these have been either cultivated or collected as food, and only 20 crops provide 90% of world's food requirement, with wheat, maize and rice being the principal staple.
In India, over 9,000 plant species including medicinal and wild varieties have been part of the diet for over 4,000 years. Indian farmers have played a critical role in conserving and diversifying crops. More than 40,000 landraces or farmer-developed rice varieties have been nurtured in the country over thousands of years alone.
However, the rapid erosion of agricultural biodiversity, driven by climate shocks, changing consumption patterns, market pressures and the homogenisation of food systems has necessitated the global call for urgent policy action.