NEW DELHI, 17 November 2021: Corteva Agriscience, the global agriculture company, today, organized a virtual ceremony to celebrate the contribution of women farmers of the Farmers-Producer Organisation (FPOs) and the company’s Pravakta program. Three women farmers were felicitated for their contribution towards sustainable agricultural practices and for creating a positive impact in the lives of fellow farmers through active knowledge sharing.
Saraswati Bai, Lakshmi Bai and Sukhiya Bai from Betul district of Madhya Pradesh a were felicitated for leading the momentum of change and supporting hundreds of other women farmers in their respective regions. (Profiles attached)
Women farmers play a catalytic role towards the achievement of transformational economic, environmental, and social changes required for sustainable development. Empowering women farmers through specific projects enabling them to access high yield, training them on agronomic practices and crop production technology suitable for the agro-climate can accelerate the progress towards sustainable food and nutrition security.
Addressing the audience, Chief Guest Pravesh Sharma, Former Managing Director, Small Farmers Agri- Business Consortium (SFAC) and currently Director, Samunnati Agro Solutions said, “Over 70 per cent of rural women in India are engaged in agriculture playing a pivotal role in creating food security and sustenance of rural communities. Empowering them with access to land rights, leadership and opportunities have far reaching effects in enhanced food security, poverty reduction, and climate change mitigation. Efforts by stakeholders and legislators at policy and implementation levels to develop and implement laws and policies to close the gender gap and promote learning & training opportunities for rural women are imperative. I commend the contribution of Corteva’s Pravakta ambassadors and women farmers from FPOs for their efforts towards building a sustainable agriculture ecosystem. I believe that providing rural female farmers with education; agricultural inputs, tools, and technology; land rights; and water access enables them to fight the effects of climate change and farm more productively.”
Rahoul Sawani, Managing Director- South Asia, Corteva Agriscience, said, “Women are the foundation of agriculture and guardians of food security. If women farmers had the same access to productive resources as male farmers, they could increase yields on their farms by 20-30%. Raising the agricultural output in developing countries by up to 4%. Understanding the need to empower rural women farmers, we, at Corteva, have been conducting on-ground interventions to empower rural women and have programs that holistically address challenges faced by rural women by providing financial literacy, agronomy training, Agri inputs, access to the end-to-end value chain and more to maximize the opportunities for them in agriculture.”
The awarded women farmers shared their inspiring stories during the ceremony. They also spoke about the support given by Corteva under varied interventions.
Corteva is leading several programs to empower women smallholder farmers to realize higher yields and increased profits. Under their flagship program ‘Pravakta program’, various women farmers have been trained to become the local ambassadors, ‘Pravakta’, who guide fellow farmers on preferred agricultural practices, enabling them to implement good agronomic practices and establishing market linkages of the crop.
Through the FPO program, Corteva has established an ecosystem to promote agri-entrepreneurship amongst rural women across India, primarily in Madhya Pradesh and Bihar. They have been helping FPOs by providing financial literacy, leadership training and technical grooming for agriculture entrepreneurship for women farmers/agri entrepreneurs.
With introduction of AcreNext next generation of rice farming program for women farmers in India, Corteva is spearheading the movement of using direct seeded rice farming methods in the water-scarce region of Nawada, Bihar.