Going beyond environmental training, socio-economic and gender programmes in cotton
Meet Rudrani Oza. She is Senior Manager - Local Partnerships and Gender Intervention at CottonConnect. Based in India, Rudrani is a gender expert, with over 18 years of experience in the areas of gender, HIV/AIDS, reproductive health, water & sanitation, and children’s rights.
In many growing communities, women play key roles in planting and harvesting that determine the quantity, quality, and sustainability of cotton farming. Yet, too often, women’s contributions to cotton go unacknowledged, with this role being belittled, and they do not hold decision making power.
Women typically have reduced roles in transportation and sales, and thus limited direct access to profits and high-value roles. Poor access to education and health services also undermine the wellbeing of women farmers and their families. And to add to this, women often do not have supplementary income during low periods in cotton production, leading to extremes in income generation.
Too often efforts to revitalise cotton supply chains have neglected this key stakeholder group.
To understand the best intervention, we realised you need to build in the geographical and cultural context. Building on the findings of its previous report, “Planting the Seed: A Journey to Gender Equality in the Cotton Industry”, we conducted a detailed gendered value chain mapping in six communities in China and India. The organisation’s research revealed substantial differences in women’s roles and responsibilities that allowed the identification of targeted responses in each location.
This mapping has also enabled us to identify specific opportunities to drive women’s economic empowerment. For instance, in India, women are less likely to take decisions on key purchases like inputs and equipment and less likely to be participate in key decisions around sales. This suggests that supporting women in cotton requires not only supporting their technical knowledge but also building skills such as negotiation and communication that shift power dynamics in their favour. Additionally, labour in cotton is highly seasonal, reinforcing the importance of building additional income streams, such as micro-businesses and self-help groups, that can provide more consistent income. By contrast in China, we developed a partnership to support women’s communication and negotiation abilities.
What has been essential, is to adopt an integrated approach for gender related programs which combine capacity building in literacy, numeracy, women’s rights and health as well as agriculture. More than 164,000 women have taken part in CottonConnect’s “Women in Cotton” programme, enabling women to take advantage of increased livelihood opportunities, both within cotton and through supplemental income running their own enterprises.
Further supporting their ability to develop new income streams during low season, The Farmer Business School gives cotton farmers training in financial literacy and management and introducing them to new technology, microfinance and credit. More than 25,600 farmers have benefited from our Farmer Business School programmes.
Where women already play key roles in cotton, filling these gaps with technical training can have direct contributions to strengthening cotton value chains. Where women are more marginalized, supporting their ability to take on higher-value roles empowers them, helping them to earn higher incomes and have greater influence over cotton production.
