The question Mahila Kisan Adhikar Manch (MAKAAM) was built around is perhaps one of the oldest evasions in Indian agricultural policy: how does a country in which women perform the majority of farm labour continue to have no women in its definition of a farmer? Founded in 2014 Secunderabad-based MAKAAM is an informal alliance that now spans more than 120 organisations and individuals including farming women, women farmers’ collectives, civil society organisations, and researchers and activists across 24 states.
According to MAKAAM, “when we talk about Women Farmers, this term encompasses cultivators, agricultural workers (where, apart from lack of land rights, differential wage rates between men and women is a major problem), fisherwomen, women dependent on forests, salt pan workers, and more.” MAKAAM’s work moves between legal advocacy, field research, and direct organising, covering land rights, wages, credit access, agroecology, and forest rights. The Charter of Demands it has developed over a decade covers demands related to market access, provision of loans and subsidies, and building women farmer collectives. It is one of the few documents in India that attempts to name comprehensively what the women farmers are actually owed. For researchers using this archive, MAKAAM’s website is itself a resource. Its research papers, status reports, and factsheets constitute a body of knowledge that sits between academic research and ground-level testimony.
Know more about Mahila Umang Producers Company’s work here.
This resource is curated as part of Woman Farmer Project’s Resource Library.
The Woman Farmer Project is a multimedia storytelling initiative led by The Locavore in partnership with the Doc Society Climate Story Kitchen.
