As Climate Stress Grows, SEWA Equips Women Farmers With New Tools
The Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) is working to empower the women in India’s informal sector. Today, they organize roughly 3.8 million women workers across the country. For more than 50 years, SEWA has fought for the self-reliance of women, advocating for fair wages, healthcare, insurance, housing and access to markets and training. Their network includes vendors and hawkers, producers, labor and service providers, and home-based workers. “We come together as poor, as women, and as workers, no matter what caste, community, or religion they belong to,” Reema Nanavaty, Head of SEWA, tells Food Tank. “We come together to build our collective strength in our fight against poverty.” In a country that remains an agrarian economy, more than half of SEWA’s members are farmers or agricultural workers. And as the climate crisis places a greater strain on food production, men in rural areas are seeking opportunities in cities, leaving women responsible for farms. “There’s a feminization of agriculture happening,” Nanavaty says. But SEWA reports that many women farmers are still constrained by gender discrimination, including the lack of land ownership and access to key resources. And the worsening heat and extreme weather events threaten to exacerbate the inequities further. Unseasonal rains,...
