Women producers strengthening India’s food systems

For the women holding boxes of forest fruit in Jhansi and those recording milk deliveries in Assam, everyday work is gradually gaining the recognition it deserves. In two very different corners of India, women producers are strengthening local food systems, building enterprises, and turning labour that once went unnoticed into visible economic value.

In Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh, groups of women gather beneath the shade of trees with baskets of ber, the Indian jujube. The fruit has been harvested from nearby areas and now moves through a careful process of sorting, checking, and packing. Each piece is examined for quality before being placed into hampers that will travel far beyond the village.

The work requires patience and skill. From selecting the best fruit to sealing the boxes by hand, each hamper carries hours of careful effort. The women are connected to the agrifood enterprise Abrosaa Pvt Ltd, a start up working with forest produce and rural suppliers. For many of them, this activity represents more than seasonal income. It offers a pathway to greater financial independence and participation in a growing agrifood business.

Hundreds of kilometres away in Assam, a similar spirit of enterprise is unfolding in Ulubari village of Chirang district. Here, members of Sanghamitra Mahila Producers, a women led Farmer Producer Organisation, meet in a modest office where registers and ledgers record the day’s activities.

Milk from nearby villages has already been collected earlier in the day. Inside the office, the women carefully review invoices, activity logs, and records of deliveries. The cooperative produces value added dairy products such as paneer and ghee, turning raw milk into products that can reach wider markets.

Each entry in the register represents more than production figures. It reflects the collective effort of women who have organised themselves to strengthen livelihoods and expand their role in local decision making. Accurate documentation has become an essential part of their work, helping them track production, manage finances, and engage more confidently with buyers.

Across both enterprises, small changes are gradually transforming the way work is understood. Through recent trainings linked to the TEEBAgriFood project in India, women farmers and workers are beginning to explore the broader value behind their work- how healthy ecosystems, skilled labour, and strong community organisation support both sustainability and profitability. These early efforts are helping them recognise how their enterprises depend on natural, human, social, and produced capital, while strengthening their confidence to communicate the true value of their products to buyers and markets.

These efforts are supported through the True Value Accounting initiative under the TEEBAgriFood India programme, led by the United Nations Environment Programme with support from the IKEA Foundation. The initiative works with both public and private sector actors to recognise the broader contributions that sustain agrifood systems, including ecosystems, local knowledge, and sustainable resource use, helping ensure that the true value behind food production is reflected and broadly nature’s invisible values are visible in economic decision-making.

                                                                                                           ***