Women farmers of Bengal’s Jhargram reap fortunes with organic rice
Panchabati Baske of Damodarpur village and Nirmala Mahato of Murakhati village are trendsetters in their respective villages in West Bengal’s Jhargram district. Though not highly educated, Ms. Baske and Ms. Mahato have started a revolution by cultivating indigenous varieties of rice organically, without using any chemical fertilisers. There are 55 women farmers in Damodarpur village and 21 women farmers in Murakathi village following in their footsteps by growing indigenous varieties of rice.
Hundreds of women farmers have taken up the cultivation of indigenous rice varieties like Kalabhat (Black rice), Mallifullo (brown rice) and Kerala Sundari (raw aromatic full bran folk rice) and Red Rice, locally called as Sathia, in the remote villages of Jhargram.
What started in 2017 with a dozen women has taken the form of a company with 2,677 women farmers as shareholders to Aamon Mahila Chasi Producer Company Limited. The number of women cultivators, across the five-gram panchayats of Nayagram block in Jhargram, participating in this initiative now stands at over 4,500. The area of land cultivated this year is more than 1,100 hectares .