Dr. Nandini Azad, President of Working Women’s Forum (WWF) – Indian Cooperative Network for Women (ICNW) has been honoured with The Hindu – World of Women Award for Excellence in agriculture and rural development on March 31, 2023, in Chennai.
Talking at the event, Dr. Azad, quoted statistics on women farmers in India and how landless women farmers are transformed into owners of the land through WWF-ICNW inputs by highlighting the case.
According to her, nearly 75 per cent of full-time workers on Indian farms are women, with less than 8 per cent of women farmers owning land. Working Women’s Forum (WWF) – Indian Cooperative Network for Women (ICNW), through financial inclusion and capacity building, have nearly 34 per cent of women farmer members now with land titles to address the core of gender inequalities in agriculture. Strengthening of personal ability and self-confidence (95%) due to exposure, training, and mass meetings, the women farmers are deciding on what crop to grow, marketing strategies, and profit making.
For an instance, the Award winner Dr. Azad cited the case of Padmavathy from Kalakatur village, Kancheepuram (a 22-year-old member of ICNW). Padmavathy, a daily wage labourer, received finger millet as wages. Experienced starvation with one-time porridge, met ICNW organiser. Her first loan amount was Rs.400 (in 2003). In the next loans, she bought a bullock, rented it and continued to be a wage earner. With the subsequent loans and savings, she bought five cents of land in her name. ICNW training made women farmer members keep titles on their name, shifting land-owning practices with a long-term response.
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Padmavathy educated her son and also involved him in the family farm, employing three other women in the farm business. Later purchased a cow and started a dairy business. With diversification in her business, later in her 10th loan cycle, she bought 25 cents of land again. Her one-time meal became three nutritious meals in a day, turning wage labour into a land owner (women-led development) in 12 loan cycles. “ICNW promotes livelihood of the poor women members through responsible investment in agriculture with inputs in loans, capacity building, gender awareness regarding land titles, deciding crops, diversification, custody of income,” said Dr. Nandini Azad.
Providing digital financial literacy during the pandemic made many rural women carry on their occupations. Dr. Azad cited another success story. The brave fisherwomen group of five members in coastal Tamil Nadu, Adiramapattinam fought supply chain disruption. Initially, they faced exploitation from middlemen, auctioneers, unavailability of credit to buy fish for selling, and client differential choices made them starve and face loss. Through ICNW’s continuous loaning, they eliminated the middlemen, auctioneers, and whole-sellers by taking over the auction process. The head would auction the fish, two of the members sold in markets, Meenatchi sold the fish as a head loader and Thangeshwari process the remaining fish and sold them as dry fish to the customers. They also bought a boat and net for their household, husbands i.e., assets by creating their own supply chain through continuous loaning, and financial inclusion.
Dr. Nandini Azad-led organisations have reached 600,000 women members across four states in South India (Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Telangana) in 280 occupations. The voices of poor women are heard at global high tables with representation at the World Farmers Organisation (large independent voice of farmers), and International Raiffeisen Union (oldest cooperative union) as board members, the only women to be elected in 50 years. Recognised by UN Commission on Status of Women & Commission on Social Development as the only cooperative in major UN HQ events (last 2-3 years). As the Global facilitator of the working group on cooperatives, in WFO, Dr. Azad represents poor women farmers’ cooperatives globally.
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The case of Saroja, a marginal farmer from Kancheepuram, who started a poultry farm, faced loss due to market imperfections. Continuous loaning and technical knowledge made her grow chicken feed on her land and used chicken waste as manure (organic manure) for mango trees on her farm. These methods are promoted by WWF-ICNW along with compost pits, waste management and practicing Ayurveda, the science of plants, by which poor rural women are transformed into green warriors. As it is hard to separate gender and climate change, a new climate financing pipeline has started.
It is pertinent to note that Hillary Clinton, as US Secretary of State visited ICNW in 2011 to observe its operation and also interacted with the women entrepreneurs, admiring the unique new age cooperative governed by grassroot women. World leaders and the inter-governmental process have been increasingly admiring WWF-ICNW’s ‘Gender and Equity Model of Empowerment’ as a holistic example of the UN SDG.
“The International Network for women in cooperatives provides a glimmer of hope for international awareness of enforcement of conventions, restoring gender balance, gender networking in cooperatives, and success of new age women-only cooperatives that are trendsetters,” Dr. Nandini Azad said during her address. She concluded her speech by thanking ‘The Hindu’ and congratulating all the amazing women awardees.
