In India, more than 85% women are engaged in agriculture yet only 13% own land. This gender gap in ownership makes it clear that while women farmers toil away, when it comes to ownership and empowerment, they are still far behind. Better life farming, a global multi stakeholder alliance that works across the agri value chain, is working to empower smallholder women farmers to devise solutions that are approachable, equitable and flexible. Better Life Farming centres located near agriculture communities act as a one stop solution to help smallholders access inputs. Kalyani Singh is a 24 year old smallholder farmer and owns her own Better Life Farming Centre, through which she helps other women smallholders. She joined the organisation in 2020 and began growing tomatoes on her three acre family farm and has now increased her yields and incomes by 50% and 40% respectively. Earlier BLF centres were run by primarily men and women were hesitant to visit them. Now, they have 12 female agri-entrepreneurs running their own BLF centres across two states in India and serving 15,000 women smallholders across 50 villages. They trained their male ground staff to help them inculcate gender sensitivity and beak biases towards women farmers. The foundation’s gender-smart approach is off to a great start and with this initiative, more women farmers would be able to find ownership and joy in cultivating their own farmers.
Better Life Farming: Extending Women Ownership of Agriculture
