Women Farmers Confront Climate Change and Forge Sustainable Futures

Introduction

Welcome to Sahakarita - SEWA Cooperative Federation's quarterly digital publication. We work as a Women’s Enterprise Support System (WESS), promoting and supporting grassroot women’s enterprises. Through this newsletter we bring to you our work, stories of our grassroots women's collective enterprises, their needs and their contribution to the economy.

With the summer months touching temperatures that they have never before in the past, climate change is no longer a thing of the future. For agriculture workers like Lataben, it alters their lives every day. In our first volume, we try to explore the effect of the climate crisis on informal women workers and the role of women's collective enterprises in its mitigation.

We hope you enjoy reading it as much as we have enjoyed putting this together!

If you would like to support or partner with us, do get in touch. And if you found this volume valuable, please share it on social media.

Voices of Change with Dr. Vandana Shiva

We had a conversation with environmental activist and thinker Dr. Vandana Shiva on women’s collectives and climate action.

Awarded with the Right Livelihood Award or the 'Alternative Nobel Prize' in 1993, Dr Shiva has extensively worked towards de-corporatising agriculture, restoring food sovereignty and promoting a traditional seed culture through Navdanya, a movement for protecting biological and cultural diversity.

Q: What role can grassroots women's collective enterprises play in the mitigation of the climate disaster?

Dr. Shiva: The climate, health, inequality, poverty and hunger crises have their roots in corporate greed, profits and control. 10 billionaires now own more wealth than 40% of humanity. This is inhuman, not sustainable and unjust. Women’s grassroots collective enterprises are creating economies based on needs and care, not greed, on cooperation, not competition, on diversity, not uniformity and monocultures, on self determination, not external control, on decentralisation, not centralisation.

When true costs and true benefits are taken into account, women’s grassroots collective enterprises produce more while regenerating the earth and enhancing women’s potential. These are the economies of the future.

Q: You often talk about how women have the potential to lead the transition to regenerate the Earth and how their natural instinct for farming is that of growing food for health and not disease. Why do you say this?

Dr. Shiva: I do not refer to natural instincts. I am not an essentialist. Women have knowledge and skills for caring for the earth, the soil, the children because they were left to care for the basis of life, and care work was not considered work. The care economy was not considered an economy. Women’s work and knowledge was not counted. But the care economy is the foundation of all economies.

The transition to regenerate the earth needs women’s experience, knowledge, skills, values, world views. This includes the recognition that we are part of the earth, not separate from her. What we do to the earth, we do to ourselves. When we grow food with care for the earth and community , we grow healthy food . The health of the planet and our health is one health.

Q: Crises of any kind, including the climate crises, affect the marginalised more than anyone. It is often the economically disadvantaged, informal women workers that are the worst affected. We saw this during COVID-19. How can we be better prepared and make sure that we don't leave anyone behind?

Dr. Shiva: Climate resilience has both ecological and social dimensions. Uniform, long distance, centralised systems are more vulnerable to climate breakdown. Diverse, localised, decentralised systems bounce back more easily.

Women bear the heaviest burden when climate disasters strike. But women also carry the knowledge and practices that create resilient systems. Women are central actors in responding to climate change. They should be climate action leaders.

Q: What is Ecofeminism and how is it the future according to you?

Dr. Shiva: Ecofeminism is the recognition that the Earth and women are creative and intelligent. Capitalist patriarchy created the illusions that nature is dead, raw materials are to be exploited and property to be owned. That women are passive, objects to be owned and manipulated. Capitalist patriarchy has unleashed ecocide and femicide. The non -violent creative partnership of women and nature can help humanity avert ecological collapse and extinction.

Why & How To Make Climate Action More Equitable?

Girls and women are at higher risk of food insecurity, are more likely to die in extreme weather events, and are more likely to experience mental health impacts caused by climate change than boys and men (IPCC, February 2022).

The intersection between environmental issues and social issues is ubiquitous, yet it is often overlooked. Women are more closely associated with the environment for resource collection and management, like water and food. To ensure climate justice, it is critical to consider social justice, as both are interconnected. In Anubandh - Building 100-mile Communities, Elaben Bhatt says, “Change, to be real, has to come from the people; it cannot be trickled down, it cannot be imported, it cannot be imposed.”

With increasing issues around health and livelihood emerging due to extreme weather conditions, informal women workers in urban and rural areas are impacted the most. Informal women workers are also burdened with increased care work in addition to their work. Whether they are domestic workers or artisans working in enclosed spaces or street vendors and farmers working outdoors, climate change impacts their health and livelihood.

“Along with work that I do at Megha, I continue to work on our fields in my village, Chichbardi. Given the increasing heat, it is difficult to work on the fields later in the day. But I still have all the farm work to finish, so I wake up earlier in the morning, to avoid the extreme afternoon heat. When I come back, I also finish all the household work”, shares Sangitaben, a farmer and board member of Megha Tribal Women Farmers' Cooperative

With tacit knowledge about climate resilience and ways of maintaining efficiency in decision making roles. Despite the unequivocal value of women’s participation in climate movements and their history as environmental defenders, men still fill 67 per cent of climate-related decision-making roles and women’s representation in national and global climate negotiating bodies remains below 30 per cent.

When the impact of the crisis varies depending on the state, geographical region and socio-political status, so should the climate action plans. This is where the ‘Cooperative Model’ comes in. Cooperatives act for a sustaining livelihoods, these women workers’ approach to their trade/work is intuitively sustainable in nature, however women are under-represented in better, more inclusive, more sustainable, more participative, and more prosperous future for all. The women-owned cooperative movement is based on an intense collaboration of common understanding and mutual respect. Their voice and representation will ensure not just inclusive policy design, but since they lead on-ground efforts, it will also ensure efficient and effective implementation.

Bulletin Board

• On 28th April 2022, SEWA Cooperative Federation Chairperson, Mirai Chatterjee spoke about 'Why Child Care Matters?' at a webinar jointly hosted by USAID - Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance , White House Gender Policy Council and National Security Council on Incentivising Investments in Global Child Care Infrastructure. The opening remarks for the webinar were made by First Lady Dr Jill Biden. Melinda French Gates, USAID administrator Samantha Power and Mari Elka Pangestu, Managing Director of Development Policy and Partnerships World Bank also spoke at the webinar.
• Gujarat Mahila Housing Trust , one of our member cooperatives, has bagged the Prince Talal International Prize For Human Development 2021 under the topic Climate Action SDG13. A prize of $300,000 USD has been awarded to MHT for their project titled Women’s Action Towards Climate Resilience Of Urban Poor In South Asia. Big congratulations to the whole team!
• A chapter authored by Salonie Muralidhara Hiriyur (Senior Coordinator, SEWA Federation) on Informal Workers Harnessing The Power Of Digital Platforms In India was published as a chapter in a book titled Social Contracts And Informal Workers In The Global South, published by WIEGO. You can read it here.
• Dr. Palak Gadhiya Research Manager, SEWA Cooperative Federation) presented SEWA Cooperative Federation’s work at a webinar conducted by National Cooperative Union Of India on 6th June, 2022 on Cooperative Universities.