Women farmers leverage collective power to form producer company
Despite carrying out many farming activities, women lacked recognition. Coming together as a self-help group, they have found confidence to progress and use collective bargaining power to their advantage
“This
is the recognition of our hard work, of establishing our identity as farmers.
This is the time to celebrate,” said Moina Krishani. “We have come a long way.
We will go a long way.”
Moina
Krishani could not control her emotions as she received the news of their farmer
producer company (FPC) becoming the first women producer company to be
registered in Koraput, a tribal dominated district in southern Odisha.
The
Koraput Nari Sakti Farmer Producer Company got registered under the Companies
Act, 2013 on 23 July, 2020. “I feel happy that our company has been registered
as Nari Shakti, the strength of the
women,” said Moni Khillo, a board member. “The name itself will let everyone
know that it is a company run by women.”
This
is no mean feat for women who were reluctant to come out of their house about
10 years ago. Realizing the strength of being together, the women congregated
into village level organizations, and then into federations, reaching out to more
than 25,000 women in Koraput district.
Women farmers sans identity
“The
women toil in the fields which they cannot call their own. After a long day’s
work in the field, they would cook and do household chores, only to eat the
leftover,” said Laxmi Sisa, during a program on the role of women in farming.
Compared
to men, women spend more time on the field, raising nursery, transplanting,
weeding, harvesting, sorting, storing, etc. Yet the women find themselves left
behind as they do not hold land in their name, do not have any decision making
power, and they have very little exposure to the market.
With
non-exposure to the outside world, women have been fearful of stepping out and
shy to share their views. The control remains with the men who procure seeds
and fertilizers, and sell the produce. There were a multitude of issues.
Capacity
building
When
Professional Assistance for Development Action (PRADAN) started working in the
area, the initial step was to mobilize the women into forming self-help groups.
The regular meetings and training made the women confident. The women
organizations became the pillar of support to each other.
The
capacity building program of the women focused on multiple issues such as
gender training, skill building, training around different agricultural
practices, improved livestock rearing, financial literacy and exposures.
“Earlier
we used to produce only paddy or millet. But now we grow vegetables and pulses
along with paddy and millets. We know different methods of cultivating such as
the SRI method in paddy, SMI method in millet and trellis method for creepers,”
said Krishani.
“We
know about plant diseases and the treatment methods. We know how to prepare
different compost and how to use it,” she said. “Men have now started
respecting us and in many households women are joint decision makers.”
Collective power
With
women coming to the fore, issues such as farm drudgery, quality of seeds and
fertilizers, soil deterioration, crops for household consumption, etc. were
discussed in different forums. Women who were engaged in every stage of farming
knew the nitty gritty, and could exactly identify problems related to
agriculture.
Unlike
men, women work collectively, whether it is in their self-help group (SHG) to
take loan from the bank or to do transplanting in a patch of land. It was
easier to convince the women to work collectively to solve the problems that
can help realize the economies of scale.
Each
SHG does a household level planning to understand what crop the household would
grow, in how much land, the requirement of seeds, fertilizers and other inputs.
Along with the crop planning, women also plan the kind of farm mechanization
implements needed in their SHG.
This
plan from all the SHGs is consolidated at the village level and then at the block
level federation. At the block level all the plans are tabulated to check the
overall demand for agriculture inputs. All the inputs are procured centrally at
negotiated price and distributed as per the demand, thus significantly reducing
the input costs. Similarly, the training calendar is developed based on the
crop planning developed by the SHGs.
Crop
diversification
As
all the activities require coordination, a strong bookkeeping system ensures
transparency at each level. “Since many of us are not educated, we have engaged
trained book-keepers. We make it a point that the records of each meeting are
entered in the book and the minutes are read out. These books are also
regularly audited,” said Tulsa Adari, an FPC board member.
“We
then slowly started marketing cash crops such as chilly. We realized that
marketing collectively not only helps in negotiating better prices but also
saves time and energy,” said Krishani. Women farmers were then mobilized into
producer groups, each group having a
membership of around 150 women farmers from about five villages.
The
formation of a producer group led to synchronized crop planning. A study of
nearby wholesale mandis and markets was done to assess the demand of the crops
in different markets. Based on the study, a few crops were identified by the producer
groups, so that the women could cultivate and sell collectively.
Farmer
company
In
2018, Odisha government initiated a project called the Agriculture Production
Cluster (APC) which was a turning point for the women farmers in Koraput. While
the producer groups helped the women farmers plan and market collectively, the
program recognized producer groups as APCs and provided a budget. It helps the
women avail various schemes and promotes local agripreneur.
When
the transactions increased, the group had to be registered as an FPC. Awareness
training was conducted for the farmers about FPC, its legalities, selection of
board members and their roles and responsibilities. This was followed by
visioning exercises at all levels.
Subsequently,
10 members from Lamtaput and Nandpur administrative blocks were selected and
are now the FPC’s directors. Walmart Foundation’s LEAP project also supports
the Nari Shakti FPC in strengthening its capacity to gainfully engage with the
market and provide necessary support to its members.
“We
currently have 350 women farmers as shareholders and generated Rs 350,000 in
five months of the FPC formation. Currently, the FPC has decided to farm millets
in the food crop category, chilly, ginger and beans in the cash crop category
and backyard poultry and goat in the livestock category,” said Mahima Khillo,
one of the board members.
Ecosystem Support
While
this journey of women farmers coming together to farm and to running an FPC is
inspiring, it is important to understand that such development also requires to
build an ecosystem for sustainable change.
Developing
an ecosystem requires resources, skill and capacity building, infrastructure
development and pro-poor policies to build a positive spiral of growth. A
synergistic coalition of government, donors and civil society with each playing
their distinctive role in tandem is crucial to bring long-lasting change.
Nikita
Saikia, qualified as an electronics and communication engineer, has been
working with PRADAN for four years. Based at Lamtaput, she is engaged in the
promotion of farmer producer company. Views are personal.