Bhubaneswar: Women farmers must play a central role in driving India’s transition towards sustainable and climate-resilient agriculture, SEWA Senior Coordinator Mansi Shah has asserted, underscoring that purposeful inclusion of women across agricultural schemes, policies, and value chains is critical for long-term transformation.
Drawing on SEWA’s extensive experience working with millions of women farmers across India, Shah said women are often pushed into distress sales due to small production volumes, weak market linkages, and limited bargaining power, despite being the backbone of agricultural labour.
“Without systematically addressing these structural barriers, sustainable agriculture cannot be economically viable for women farmers,” she noted.
SEWA’s Four-Pillar Agricultural Model
SEWA’s agricultural campaign is built on four interlinked pillars:
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Capacity building,
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Access to inputs, including quality seeds and fertilisers,
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Access to finance, and
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Access to markets.
This integrated approach has enabled women farmers to move beyond subsistence and distress-driven decisions, Shah said. A key innovation of SEWA’s model is positioning young women as agricultural change-makers, fostering leadership while strengthening local agri-ecosystems.
Women farmers are organised into clusters to achieve economies of scale. These collectives manage their own seed banks and fertiliser banks, produce bio-pesticides and bio-fertilisers, and distribute them locally at affordable rates. This not only ensures timely access to inputs for fellow women farmers but also creates dignified livelihood opportunities for rural youth.
Market Access: The Missing Link
While government and civil society interventions often focus on boosting production, market access remains a critical bottleneck for smallholder and women farmers. Shah emphasised that sustainable agriculture cannot succeed unless farmers are assured fair prices and stable demand.
“Supply-side solutions alone are insufficient. Market constraints continue to undermine the economic viability of sustainable practices,” she said.
Crop and Diet Diversification Go Hand in Hand
Crop diversification, Shah argued, is inseparable from diversifying food consumption patterns. Data from India’s Household Consumption Expenditure Survey shows a troubling trend: diets are increasingly dominated by refined grains and ultra-processed foods, both indicators of declining nutritional quality.
To counter this, policymakers and civil society organisations are promoting dietary diversity, aligned with national and global nutritional frameworks such as those of the EAT-Lancet Commission. These efforts encourage balanced consumption of coarse grains, fruits, and vegetables.
Millets and other coarse grains grown across India offer multiple advantages: they are nutrient-dense, thrive in rainfed and marginal agro-climatic zones, and generate lower greenhouse gas emissions compared to many water-intensive staple crops. Crucially, they also act as climate buffers for farmers facing erratic rainfall and rising temperatures.
Odisha as a Case in Point
Regions such as Odisha, characterised by diverse cropping systems and a high proportion of smallholders, illustrate the resilience potential of such approaches. Despite repeated extreme weather events, these regions have managed to sustain agricultural production over the past two decades.
According to Shah, this resilience underscores the importance of women-led, diversified, and ecologically sustainable farming systems as India confronts the twin challenges of climate change and nutritional insecurity.
The Way Forward
The transition to sustainable agriculture, Shah concluded, cannot be achieved without recognising women farmers as economic agents, innovators, and leaders, rather than beneficiaries alone. Integrating women meaningfully into agricultural value chains, markets, and policy frameworks is not only a question of equity but a prerequisite for building resilient food systems in India.
-OdishaAge
