Forty-five women farmers marked National Women Farmers Day at Amreli

Most agricultural extension is addressed to men, in a room where the women who do a large share of the field work are not present. National Women Farmers Day exists to correct that, and it is worth marking properly rather than with a photograph.

Forty-five women farmers came to the Amreli office on 11 October, with AKRSP(I), the National Coalition for Natural Farming and Friends of Women’s World Banking.

The sessions were practical: preparing Jeevamrut and Agniastra, and reading soil health. These are inputs a farmer can make on her own field from what she already has, which is the point — a practice that depends on buying something is a practice that stops when the money does.

The group visited the model farm at Gujarat National Forensic Sciences University to see the methods on standing crop rather than on a slide.

The day closed with an exhibition of what the women make and grow. Being introduced as a producer, in front of an audience, is not a small thing in a district where the word farmer is still assumed to mean a man.