WEA: India Women, Food Security and Climate Change Training Program

Grassroots Partner: Gorakhpur Environmental Action Group (GEAG), India

In April 2011, WEA and its regional partner, Gorakhpur Environmental Action Group (GEAG) launched the India Women, Food Security and Climate Change Training, a year-long training focused on: building the resilience of women's farming livelihoods in the face of climate change; and improving women farmers’ food and economic security, which are devastated by floods in this region and other parts of India.

Phase 1 of the training launched in April 2011 with a week-long intensive at GEAG’s training center in Campierganj, Uttar Pradesh, with 31 women farmers, community organizers, campaigners and master trainers, who attended from 4 Northern Indian states.

During the Training, each participant team designed their own action plans and received seed grants to launch community-specific projects addressing climate change and food security issues. Action plans included projects like saving flood resistant indigenous patty seeds, and planting over 6,000 indigenous trees.

Phase 2 of the training reunited over 30 women in the state of West Bengal at a remote training center surrounded by rice patty farms. During this phase, participants shared their challenges and successes in implementing their action plans, visited farms of West Bengal farmers to learn additional organic farming techniques and delved deeper into the impacts of climate change on women farmers in India.

Why the Need?

Women are India’s significant food producers, and yet they are not recognized as farmers and struggle to access land rights, training and opportunities. Nearly 72 percent of employed Indian women are in the agriculture sector, yet they comprise barely 11 percent of landowners. Compounding this, a recent FAO survey found that women access less than 5 percent of worldwide extension services because of inhospitable training hours and environments for women.  WEA is working to change this.

WEA’s India Women, Food Security and Climate Change Initiative partners with Indian grassroots groups and leaders to provide ecological farming training, appropriate technology, rights education, and seed funding to grassroots Indian women leaders and farmers to improve their food and economic security, preserve the environment and traditional knowledge, and build political will.

How Team Efforts Translate to Impact:

WEA is currently seeking support for Phase 3 of the training. Phase 3 will reunite these women farmers to delve deeper into topics, including climate change, advocacy, movement building and campaigning to assert the rights of women as farmers.

How the Training Program creates sustainable global change:

1.     Improves food and economic security by building a cadre of empowered and resourced rural women trainers who will spread critical knowledge to their networks and communities.

2.     Preserves the environment and traditional knowledge systems of India by imparting climate change adaptation practices, promoting conservation of indigenous seeds, and recognizing women’s innovations to protect their land and natural resources.

3.     Builds the political will of women leaders invested in driving policy efforts and educating the public by providing rights education and creating a solidarity network.