Problem
Tenant farmers and sharecroppers mostly farm under informal leases that shut them out of institutional credit and insurance
- National
- State
NITI Aayog's Expert Committee on land leasing (2016) found that most state governments have legally banned or restricted agricultural leasing, and that these laws have forced tenancy to become informal, insecure and inefficient: informal tenants "do not have legal sanctity and access to institutional credit, insurance and other support services". The Reserve Bank of India's 2019 working group on agricultural credit likewise recorded that tenant farmers, sharecroppers and oral lessees struggle to get institutional credit without a legal framework or records of their cultivation. The Committee's Model Agricultural Land Leasing Act is a model for states; how many have adopted it is not established here, and the number of informal tenants is not reliably measured. Evidence confidence: High for the exclusion from formal support; low for its scale.
This is the most specific entry on this branch of the catalogue. The evidence behind it is below.
Who is responsible
- State Revenue Departments · State GovernmentLeasing and tenancy are governed by State laws.
- NITI Aayog · Union GovernmentPrepared the Model Agricultural Land Leasing Act, 2016.
- Reserve Bank of India · Regulatory bodySets bank lending norms for agriculture.
Evidence and sources
- Report of the Expert Committee and Model Law on Agricultural Land Leasing · Government documentNITI Aayog Expert Committee on Land Leasing (Chair: T. Haque), 2016. Finds restrictive state leasing laws have made tenancy informal and insecure, without access to institutional credit, insurance and support services, and have reduced landowners' occupational mobility.
- Report of the Internal Working Group to Review Agricultural Credit · Government documentReserve Bank of India, 13 September 2019 (Chair: M. K. Jain). Uses NAFIS 2016-17 and Agriculture Census 2015-16. Covers non-institutional credit, tenant farmers, regional disparity, crop vs allied credit, Kisan Credit Card coverage, loan waivers and computerisation of land records by state.
Connected problems
- Contributes to About three in ten agricultural households borrow only from informal sourcesThe RBI working group names tenant farmers, sharecroppers and landless labourers among those likely to rely on informal credit.
- Contributes to Most farmers do not insure their cropsNITI Aayog's committee records that informal tenants lack access to insurance.
- Related to Close to half of India's workers still depend on agricultureNITI Aayog's committee found restrictive leasing laws keep landowners who could work outside agriculture from leaving it, for fear of losing their land.
Alongside this
Village maps lag far behind the digitised text of land records
By October 2024 the Digital India Land Records Modernization Programme reported about 95 per cent of rural land records computerised, covering over 6.26 lakh villages, but only 68.02 per cent of cadastral maps digitised nationally, and 87 per cent of sub-registrar offices integrated with land records. The programme has been extended to 2025-26. Progress has been uneven between states: the Reserve Bank of India's 2019 working group, using Department of Land Resources data, listed Arunachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Kerala, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland among those with less than half their land records computerised at the time. Digitising a record does not make it accurate on the ground, which this entry does not establish. Evidence confidence: High for programme progress; low for record accuracy.
Farm holdings are small and have been getting smaller
The Agriculture Census 2015-16 put the average operational holding at 1.08 hectares, down from 1.15 hectares in 2010-11, with small and marginal holdings (below two hectares) making up about 86 per cent of all holdings. The Reserve Bank of India's 2019 working group, citing the same census, recorded that these holdings together operated 47.34 per cent of the operated area. NSO's 2019 survey found about 70 per cent of agricultural households possessed less than one hectare (34.2 per cent between 0.01 and 0.40 ha, 35.6 per cent between 0.40 and 1.00 ha). In March 2026 the Ministry of Agriculture was still citing the 2015-16 census for holding size; later census results are not used in this entry. Evidence confidence: High.
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