BCI celebrates success of women’s project in Maharashtra
Better Cotton Initiative (BCI), the Geneva-based body that campaigns for increased production and consumption of “more sustainable cotton”, recently celebrated the success of grass-roots projects in the Indian state of Maharashtra.
It worked with German development organisation GIZ and partner corporation Ambuja Cement Foundation to help women’s groups secure greater benefit from their work in cotton production in Maharashtra.
Women in the Chandrapur district formed ‘self-help groups’ and, with the assistance of Ambuja Cement Foundation, secured access to capital that allowed them to pool their efforts to source cotton fibre and sell it on to local ginneries.
BCI has reported that collective purchasing and selling efforts enabled one women’s self-help group in Jiwati, 60 kilometres south-west of Chandrapur, to earn a surplus of €1,250 over a three-month period of negotiating with local farmers and ginneries. They used the money to buy school materials and sanitation products for their community.
The women’s group said their efforts had benefited farmers through simple initiatives such as making sure their crops were weighed fairly and that payments reached the growers quickly. They said this helped farmers avoid the clutches of local money-lenders and other middlemen.
