Greening Barren Lands and Women Entrepreneurs

Dear Reader,

When we started 30Stades in 2020, the main aim was to take inspiring stories from the nooks and crannies of India to readers across the country. Yes, we have done that and more by taking local stories to a global audience. 

However, I feel there is still a long way to go when it comes to literature on women entrepreneurship and women in agriculture. So many women in small towns and villages create employment and produce interesting products and services, all profitably. Yet, nobody knows them beyond their village or town.

For the last five years, we have been bringing their stories to the forefront. The last week (in the run-up to Women’s Day on March 8) was no exception.

My colleague Sravasti wrote an inspiring and heartwarming story about 71-year-old Rajamma, a marginal woman farmer from Kolar in Karnataka. She owns less than half an acre of land. 

Rajamma had received some heirloom seeds as a wedding gift from her parents 55 years back. For over half a century, she has multiplied and saved 120 types of native millets, pulses, and vegetable seeds, sharing them with farmers. But how did she do it without owning much land? 

Every year, Rajamma leases two to three acres of barren land (nobody will lease a flourishing farm), practices organic farming using Karnataka’s traditional Akkadi Saalu intercropping system, multiplies the seeds, and turns it into lush green fields in ten months! Not surprisingly, nobody renews the lease, and she moves to the next barren piece the following year. 

Such is the power of women – they are a storehouse of traditional knowledge and wisdom passed from one generation to another. Saving seeds and farming techniques are no exception.

My colleague Chandhini wrote an interesting piece from Kerala. She spoke to Vidhu Rajeev, who returned from Muscat to look after her ill mother-in-law in Kottayam in 2017. She bought two goats and some hens to keep her children occupied during vacations. 

Today, her dairy, poultry and fishery operations generate over Rs2 crore in revenues annually. She has also turned around the family’s degraded three-acre land parcel into a flourishing vegetable and spices farm. 

Last week, I spoke to Rama Kumari Pandey from Muzaffarpur in Bihar. Unable to find mushrooms, which she had developed a liking for when her husband worked in Pune, Rama thought of growing them at home in Bihar. She ordered a kg of seeds online and harvested 12 kg of oyster mushrooms. She now earns Rs 3 lakh monthly by growing mushrooms and preparing their spawns (seeds). 

Rama told me she trains women farmers in nearby villages for free to help them become entrepreneurs. It’s a classic case of women empowering women (without a fee).

As an ode to women, we also put together a piece on five women mushroom entrepreneurs who started from a room or balcony in their house and are now earning lakhs monthly.

Our Sunday story is on Meghalaya’s living root bridges across rivers, woven from rubber trees' aerial roots. Indigenous Khasi and Jaintia people have been making and maintaining them for centuries without cement or steel.

Happy Reading!

Warmly,
Rashmi