How One Cooperative Is Rewriting the Rules for Women Farmers

Three years ago, Sunita Devi and eleven other women in her village pooled together 40,000 rupees to start a collective that would let them sell vegetables directly to city markets, bypassing the chain of middlemen that had kept their earnings thin for years.

Today the cooperative has over 300 members across nine villages, runs its own cold storage unit, and has a direct supply contract with two supermarket chains in the nearest city. Average member income has nearly tripled, according to cooperative records reviewed by GroundWire.

"The hardest part was not the farming, it was convincing our own families to let us handle the money," Sunita said. The model has since attracted attention from the state rural development department, which is studying it for possible replication.