Good Farming – Good Food comes forward to celebrate women’s day with an idea of helping the hardworking farmer women. More than 1200 farmers from across five Districts of Madhya Pradesh, India came together to join the celebration of women’s day organised by Solidaridad, in cooperation with various stakeholders, partner organisations and institutes.

Women’s day is one of those special days when the world comes together for recognising the vital role played by women in everyone’s life. Good Farming – Good Food takes immense pride in becoming a part of the same.

Gender equality and women’s inclusiveness plays a crucial role in the Pathways laid by Good Farming – Good Food initiative. It stresses on the involvement of women in agriculture by- helping them become leaders, entrepreneur while assisting them in understanding the importance of nutrition and food security and addressing other social issues faced by them. During the year 2019, many women associated with the initiative participated in events like Nutri Month, On-field demonstrations, Good Agricultural practices training, amongst others. The initiative also helmed the outset of training women to make them able trainers, namely -Nutri Sakhi.

As one of the recent development, on 6th of March, Solidaridad, in collaboration with multiple stakeholders, institutes, farmer organisation, and industries, organised Nutri Fair 2020. Nutri Fair is an annually planned awareness programme that focuses on subjects like, the importance of nutrition, increasing livelihood, women empowerment, gender equality, agricultural sustainability, good agricultural practices amongst many other.

This year’s Nutri Fair’s theme was- “Each for Equal”, which took into account the necessity of bringing people from all walks of life together for a gender-equal world, regardless of their, age, ethnicity, religion or nationality. Gender equality is one of the Sustainable Development Goal set by the United Nations Development Program. Good Farming – Good Food and its partnering organisations have thus made it one of its top priorities amongst other implementation.

The Chief Guest for the event was Dr C R Mehta, the director of CIAE. Dr Suresh Motwani (General Manager Solidaridad) along with Shri Anoop Mishra (General Manager of Vippy Industries), Vaman Kulkarni (Mahindra & Mahindra), Dr M S Parihar (Principal Scientist of Fruit Research Institute at Eitkhedi), Dr Rekha Pandey (State Rural Livelihoods Mission), Shri Udhav Shirsath (Head of Knowledge Transfer, East-West Seeds), Dr PC Bargale (from Central Institute of Agricultural Engineering) facilitated the programme with several sessions and panel discussions.

Removing drudgery from the agricultural practices of women, empowering rural women with entrepreneurship, food and nutritional security in rural Madhya Pradesh, amongst many others formed the basis of planned sessions and panel discussions. The sessions made an impressive impact on issues that mattered the most to women from rural farming communities. The attendees received a rare opportunity to understand the dynamics of the agricultural society in the context of women involvement and empowerment.

Over 1200 women from across 50 villages ranging from districts like Bhopal and Sehore to Ujjain, Dewas and Agar Malwa, attended the fair. The impressive attendance implies the success of Nutri Fair 2020. An overwhelming response from the Senior Agricultural Scientists, Nutrition Experts, Dieticians, and other professionals, indicates the willingness of our society in bringing gender equality to the forefront of agricultural initiatives.

Stakeholders also came together to inaugurate and support Women’s Week- an awareness programme on socio-economic concerns faced by rural women, from first to 8th of March. A week-long run of the programme was made use in training farmer and rural women in various essential techniques. They received an opportunity of learning about the of processing soy in commercial and household level, operation of women-friendly tools, nutrition, financial literacy, climate-smart agricultural practices, and good agricultural practices, amongst many other. The programme managed to reach out to more than ten thousand farming families. Its impact will be felt for many years to come.

Institutes, companies, and organisations who made the event possible are -Central Institute of Agriculture Engineering, Indian Institute of Soybean Research, Vippy Industries, CIAE-ICAR, East-West Seeds, Krishi Vigyan Kendra, ICDS(Deptt of WCD), MPSRLM, Mid-Day Meal, Mahindra CSR, Samarth Kisan Producer Company, Ojas Kisan Producer company Ltd, Phanda, Siddhpur Kisan Producer Company Ltd, Sehore, Dewas Kisan Producer Company Ltd.

The event sets in motion a trend for the achievement of gender equality in the sphere of rural farming. Intending to achieve the aforementioned targets, Good Farming – Good Food looks forward to addressing similar social in the coming future.