A Women’s Day with a difference
As we go about creating unique solutions for our farmers in our mission of ‘Helping Farmers Win’, we enjoy our close association with our farmers. Through our field visits and stories we get to hear from our teams every day, we watch our farmers sweat hard, braving every weather and all odds. We get to learn lessons on humility, hard work and most importantly the virtues of thankfulness and love through our interactions with them.
There is also another side that moves us. She — the farmer’s wife, she quietly stands in every frame, which talks about farmers. She looks after the house, the cooking and the kids and then she toils equally on the farm. She becomes correspondingly knowledgeable with time and her physical efforts more or less match that of her husband’s. Yet, what she cannot do is make the decisions. Then there is the farmer’s mother, who remains a farmer until her last breath, using every energy her body has, into some activity or other on the farm. Despite her age and contribution, she too has nil decision making. Finally, a very important group when it comes to farming — the labour force that works day and night with the farmers are majorly women who choose to be labourers to make ends meet. They too lack equality, as their wages are mostly less than their male counterparts are.
As mentioned in the Bain & Company and Google report on Powering the Economy with her, the World Bank estimates that 75% of working-age women (35% of India’s working-age population) currently do not have paid work. Only 59% of women have access to mobile phones, with an abysmally low internet penetration rate of 19%, and only 35% of women actively use their bank accounts, further limiting their opportunities. Finally, although women represent 42% of the agricultural labour force in India, women own just 2% of farmland.
Statistics just show how abysmal is the plight of gender inequality in the rural parts of our country, be it access to working opportunities, owning assets, contributing to decision making or for that matter safety and security. While we are actively servicing farmers and making a difference to their lives, we wanted to do our bit for our women farmers who toil equally hard in farms and are so intelligent to understand everything about farming that we thought of Helping Women Farmers Win.
What did we do?
Our efforts started last year on Women’s Day of 2019 when we started interviewing women farmers and shared their weekly interviews in the Krishi Charcha section of our AgroStar Agri Doctor app. Kirshi Charcha is the section in our app which is India’s largest and most active social network for farming in India. Until 8th March 2020, we have published 53 women farmer interviews and have initiated a small step towards sensitizing the farmers about the contribution of women farmers to Agriculture.
This year, we wanted to expand our efforts to do something more. Therefore, we decided to shortlist five women farmers whom we had already interviewed and invite them to our Head Office in Pune to felicitate them. Two of them were from Maharashtra and three from Gujarat.
Savita Tai from Maharashtra is a woman farmer who lost her husband in 2013. She had no other option but to take up farming all by herself, to look after her sons and her mother-in-law. She had to work very hard, to be an independent farmer and get a good yield to support her family. With time, as she progressed independently on her farm, her claim to fame today includes her ability to drive a tractor, which she learned with a great push by her sons. Today, Savita Tai’s efforts to educate her sons have been fruitful with both of them faring well. Savita Tai aspires to win a National Award someday and continues to be a progressive farmer, keeping her spirits and energy high.
Ujwala Kotkar, the other woman farmer from Maharashtra, had grown up in the city of Pune as a child and had her primary and secondary education in an English Medium school. While she could not continue her education after school, she was married off at a very young age to a farmer in Ahmednagar. For someone who had no idea of farming, she had to learn everything from scratch. A very intelligent farmer who always motivates her husband to become progressive and do well, she is moved by the plight of farmers and how their efforts don’t yield them gain. For the last two years, she has been taking great efforts to become profitable on her farm by working shoulder to shoulder with her husband. She firmly believes in making the right decisions and is spirited towards independent progressive farming. Five years ago, Ujwala visited Pune to be a part of the reunion of her school friends. By the end of the meet, Ujwala was in tears as she thought that all her school friends are doing well in their respective careers whereas she could neither pursue further studies nor stay in the city to pursue a career. However, today, Ujwala is proud to be a farmer and of marching ahead, contributing her services to the nation.
Bhavna Ben’s story from Gujarat is a remarkable story of a woman farmer who today is very well a successful entrepreneur. Bhavna ben, just like Ujwala, knew nothing about farming. Her husband taught her the ABCs of farming and she followed suit. When they expanded their farm activities to animal husbandry, they started rearing cows to produce milk. However, as they realized that providing milk to the milk societies did not yield them much, Bhavna Ben experimented by making ice-cream from the milk and sold it in her village. With a great positive response to her ice-creams, she has today made it into a full-fledged venture. She also makes candies out of the watermelon they grow.
The husband-wife duo has always been fans of technology and progressive farming and has made sure to be ahead of time to implement progressive solutions on their farm. When they learned about the declining numbers of honey bees, they decided to do their bit in preserving them and started honey bee farming. Honey bees are pollinators who play a very crucial role to produce the food we eat. With 27 awards to her credit and Bhavna Ben also being a woman farmer who drives the tractor, she is a true inspiration for all. Bhavna Ben’s story is incomplete without the mention of her husband Mahendrabhai, who has been the sole reason behind the success of Bhavna Ben today.
Finally about sisters Parvati Ben and Savita Ben from Gujarat, who are both in their sixties and are progressive women farmers. While Savita Ben, the elder sister retired as a nurse, younger sister Parvati Ben ensured that her sister did not sit idle at home post her retirement. She trained Savita Ben in organic farming and today, both sisters are doing very well in farming and allied activities. Parvati ben is an active member of ATMA (Agricultural Technology Management Agency). ATMA is a society of key stakeholders involved in agricultural activities for sustainable agricultural development in the district, decentralizing day to day management of the public Agricultural Technology System. Even today, Parvati ben travels to 8–9 villages around to carry out activities of ATMA and educate farmers about modern and organic farming practices. Savitaben lauds the efforts of Parvatiben and says that while Parvati ben is her younger sister, she is her inspiration. Parvatiben has been a progressive farmer ahead of times and has always independently made decisions with her husband on her farm.
When we got all of them over, it was amazing to see them bond with us and among themselves. It was heartening to know about the challenges they face in farming and as women farmers.
Our esteemed guests were overjoyed beyond compare with this visit and before they left to go back to their homes and farms, we resolved that we will collaborate our efforts to empower more women farmers and do our bit in Helping Women Farmers Win.
