We have worked with women’s farmer collectives to help them use digital tools for member communication. We demystified the benefits to farmers from post harvest programs, developed communication content and helped FPCs reach their procurement plans. This work was done mostly in partnership with Arya.ag and SRIJAN
Some months ago, we began thinking of this from a systems change perspective. We already knew that the work is deeply transformative for women. This gave us an opportunity to learn more about what were enablers from the gender perspective? How could this work with markets be used to shift power relations, norms and narratives? It became clear that there was a need to shift the position of women in agriculture from labour to leadership. Market access was a key element to this.
In December 2021, as part of this thinking process for conceptualising systems change with women led farmer collectives, we organised a round table of women leaders from five women’s business collectives and asked them” What changes when women come into leadership in business collectives”. What we heard needed to be amplified. We are happy to have partnered with SRIJAN in this dialogue.
It was a simple online discussion of about two hours. Eight women leaders from four locations joined us, together with the team from SRIJAN and Ag connectors to think about this question ” What changes when women collectives engage with markets”. The conversation was rich and it inspired us. The voices need to be heard more.
Today, we set up Bolo Behen, a virtual space to visibilise women collectives and women leaders in markets in agriculture. The videos were edited by Amardeep. The graphics made by Diya Rao Jaini.
Our idea is to have more such conversations and amplify the voices of women’s collectives. We want them to hear each other. We also want women from other walks of life to hear them! So that more women can say to each other ”Bolo Behen”.
What can you do?
