MainBhiKisaan – A Campaign to Empower the Women Farmers

Nearly 60% of India’s population is involved in farming out of which 85% of rural women work in agriculture but remain as unidentified. Gender based discrimination plagues Indian women farmers at every step, often making them weak and their voices remain unheard. Women, the backbone of any developed society perform different roles in the agriculture sector right from being a homemaker to laborer to cultivator and even an entrepreneur but always remains as invisible contributors.

Why this gender needs recognition?

• Though women are involved in labour intensive process such as sowing, winnowing, harvesting, and other non mechanized operations it is invisible.
• Women farmers are neglected and were not provided institutional support but they contribute to 33 percent of the agriculture labor force.
• Indian women engaged in agriculture are illiterate and are less aware about the technical and financial aspects which directly impacts the productivity.
• Women are perceived as cultivators not as farmers and most women participate in agricultural work as unpaid subsistence labour.

A change has to be made to urge the gender gap and to empower the women farmers. BigHaat the largest ecommerce platform, has come up with an online campaign called #MainBhiKisaan to transform the future of farmers. We have come up with the idea of empowering the women farmers at the grassroot level by supporting and providing them with technical and financial aspects through our App. It gives a platform and a voice to every farmer including woman from urban to rural areas.

How this could be done?

BigHaat is serving the needs and making the female farmers more visible through this campaign.During this campaign a collection page is updated daily with agri input products that are specific to female farmers. Now with increasing technology the information is transmitted easily through social media pages, regular updates are provided through the creation of banners on web and social media pages. Women’s day centric ad is posted on facebook and a youtube video is published on Women’s day to add energy this International Women’s Day. This would help in easy communication of the information and to make it more easily accessible.

To encourage the women farmers and make them more aware, Online Contest is conducted across India to empower women farmers by uploading a selfie and a hashtag #MainBhiKisaan.       

BigHaat aims at making the platform more convenient to the female farmers by making the channels of communication and knowledge easier to the female farmers.  

Empower the Women Farmers – Empower the Nation

Written By: Varshini Challa