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Women farmers in India remain an invisible workforce. They do the heavy lifting in the fields, taking on labour-intensive processes and non-mechanised farm work like cattle feed management, harvesting, sowing, transplanting, winnowing, and more. Though they contribute over 15% percent to the national economy, their labour largely goes unrecognised by the agricultural sector and the government. Gender-based discrimination worsens the “crop gap” in agriculture.
nurture.farm is empowering women by bringing them to the forefront of farming. It has launched a “Women in Agriculture” (WiA) program that aims to create equal opportunity for women to participate, contribute, and improve their quality of life through agriculture. WiA focuses on creating awareness about the challenges women face in the agri ecosystem and the opportunities available to empower them to be successful and be recognised for their contributions through various initiatives.
We’re using our scale and influence to drive the gender-diversity agenda, examining opportunities to increase the representation of women in agriculture in the corporate sector as well as on the fields through our diversity hiring policies, learning academy and select social impact projects. We’re building resilient communities, training, up-skilling and hiring women who have often never worked before.
One of the key initiatives is the hiring of women field partners (Krishi Mitras) to build relationships with farmers and educate them about the benefits of adopting nurture.farm’s applications, products and services to generate higher yields and, in turn, more income. Historically consisting only of men, these all-women teams are an excellent source of feedback and learning to improve the efficiency of all the company’s offerings across the board. Since April 2021, nurture.farm has employed 180+ women Krishi Mitras, amounting to 20% of the overall field workforce. In Haryana, 99% of the field partners are women.
Operating on a “pay per effort” model, women have been the top performers in these teams for two consecutive months, earning as much as INR 22,000 per month. nurture.farm has also trained women to operate farm machinery and equipment for skill enhancement. These women who can now contribute to their family’s earnings have developed a high sense of confidence and freedom of their own—a breakthrough for women in agriculture. Their success has also propelled them towards financial independence, continuous learning, and skill upgradation for long-term career development.
In the pipeline are opportunities to empower women in domains such as harvesting and post-harvest processing through market linkage solutions that will enable them to earn more through direct sales and price transparency.
Through WiA, nurture.farm hopes to provide women with equal learning and employment opportunities to become independent.
Are you interested in working or partnering with us on this journey to empower women in agriculture in India and across the globe? We welcome ideas, dialogue, and partnerships and look forward to hearing from you at wia@nurture.farm
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Come join us on March 26, 2022 to learn how design and research can play a role in transforming agriculture globally and bring human-centered experiences to the agricultural community.