Women are of vital importance to rural economies. Women as farmers, laborers and entrepreneurs are the driving force of India’s farmland. In India, agriculture including various sub-sectors employs 80 per cent of all economically active women; they comprise 33 per cent of the agricultural labour force and 48 per cent of self-employed farmers.About 18 per cent of the farm families in India, according to National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) Reports, are headed by women. Beyond the conventional market-oriented narrower definition of ‘productive workers’, almost all women in rural India can be considered as ‘farmers’ in some sense, working as agricultural labourers, unpaid workers in the family farm enterprises or combination of the two. In many farming communities, women are the main custodians of knowledge on crop varieties.