Greater Food Security for women farmers in India

Despite the unpredictable weather and prolonged monsoons in India this year, these women farmers continue to make excellent progress using their climate-smart greenhouses. With the use of more, sustainable farming practices, many have harvested as much as 3 times the volume of crops than they have previously grown in open fields. This has resulted in many farmers’ incomes improving by $100 per month on an average basis, which in turn is increasing the food security for their families.

Success breeds success

Earlier this year we reported that Naypalli, the first woman farmer from a small village in Uttar Pradesh, India had started using her climate smart greenhouse and sown her first crop of English cucumbers. Here we present hers and 4 other women farmers’ progress.

Naypalli has now successfully completed her first harvest of 2100 kgs of cucumber. This helped increase her family’s monthly income by $220 more than she was able to earn before. She has now received support and guidance from our friends at Kheyti to start a Capsicum nursery alongside with the hope that her family’s income and nutrition intake levels will increase further.

Meena has also with the help of a local NGO, Pradan in the district of Begusarai, located in the state of Bihar, successfully planted her first crop of cucumbers in March 2022. With renewed confidence, Meena is now able to lead her family’s farming efforts as well as helping and encouraging other women in her village to follow suit.

Seema, based in Ranchi, in the state of Jharkhand, India attended the village meeting organised by our friends at Kheyti earlier this year together with 250 fellow villagers during March 2022. With the benefit of the education and training she received, Seema immediately elected to adopt the use of her climate smart greenhouse and has already started reaping the first fruits of her labour using sustainable and climate resilient farming practices.

Poonam, a widow, aged 40, also from the state of Jharkhand, India saw at first hand how one of her neighbours was benefitting from the use of their climate smart greenhouse and asked for the help, training and education needed so that her family could also start growing crops in the same manner. Despite having little or no literacy abilities, Poonam was suitably inspired and with help from other women in her village, has successfully learnt how to sow her first crop of French Beans.

Our expectations are that all these farmers will also start reaping healthier and richer harvests, thus increasing their family’s income levels as well as the long-term sustainability of their farming heritage. Most importantly they will be able to improve the food security for their families.

You, our friends, and donors have been directly responsible for helping us and our friends at Kheyti to bring about these important, life changing farming circumstances. Please continue to support our efforts as we strive to accelerate the adoption of climate smart greenhouses for a further 1000 women farmers by the end of 2023!

Slowly but surely the revolution for climate resilient farming and greater women empowerment amongst the poor farming communities in India is gathering pace. We look forward to sharing further progress by these and many other women in our next report.