As our foundation’s co-chair, Bill Gates, said at his address at the IIT Delhi campus during his four-day, recent visit to India,
Indian innovation really gets stronger all the time. One thing you can count on is that because India is a big country, people understand that innovation is not really valuable at small scale. Nor is it valuable if the cost is so high that only a small percent of the people can get access to it.
This spirit underlies scores of programs being run across the country which provide crucial support to enterprising individuals to advance social and economic progress for themselves, their communities, and the country.
Let us explore the stories of three such individuals to see how their inspired adoption of innovative approaches towards farming practices, urban development and climate resilient crop cultivation is helping to create ripples of change in their families and communities.
Revolutionizing Crop Productivity
Meet Jashoda Pradhan—a woman farmer from Odisha’s Puri district.
Over the span of two decades she has gone from being a single, unemployed woman to a skilled horticulture farmer equipped to fulfil city-dwellers’ demand for fresh vegetables. In the process, Jashoda has taught herself improved farming techniques, led community efforts to upskill other women farmers, introduced them to the advantages of diversifying farm produce and collectivizing their agricultural output for higher and more profitable sales.
Underlying these phenomenal transformations have been two associations Jashoda established, firstly with a Farmer Producer Organization (FPO) and secondly with a government-run digital portal.
The first happened in 2016 when Jashoda decided to join the Vegi-Coasta Farmer Producer Company Limited (VCFPCL)—a Farmer Producer Organization (FPO). After joining it, she led efforts to rope in other women farmers by sensitizing them about the advantages of pooling their farm produce together to sell to the urban market at more competitive prices. Her enterprising nature won her a place as a board member and she along with other women board members proceeded to enroll more than 500 women as VCFPCL’s shareholders.
The second association Yashoda established took place last year, when she learnt of the free, government-run, agricultural service, Ama KRUSHI . She applied what she learnt about pest control from the portal late last year and was able to successfully protect her farms from pest attacks. “At one point, nearly half of what we used to cultivate used to get eaten by pests,” she says. “Additionally, in having to also run the house, it was hard to step out to attend meetings physically.” The up-to-date information Jashoda received on her mobile phone helped her apply smart ways to abate pest attacks. She says,
I can now count on being able to save up to USD480-USD600 in a calendar year.
On his first visit to Odisha, Bill interacted with Jashoda at the Krushi Samiksha Kendra, and learnt first-hand how farmers like her are rising to transform their own and families’ lives as well as those of their community’s.
Shattering Stereotypes
The spirit of entrepreneurship that fosters India’s unique approach to innovation can also be seen thriving in the country’s urban areas.
Bhubaneshwar-based Rajalakshmi Jena used to be a housewife but felt she should do more with her time and in the process also gain financial independence. To meet these aspirations she decided, in 2012, to become a businesswoman. She set up the Uma Maheshwari Self-Help Group (SHG) which at first focused on a simple money-lending model. The group then made a foray into construction work and took on a wall painting project in the city. Although the project ran into a loss, she did not let this deter her or her group. This is when she learnt of the government’s urban wage employment initiative, MUKTA.
Set up in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the scheme aimed to provide ‘rapid-response employment opportunities’ for poor workers in urban areas whose livelihoods had been disrupted by the pandemic.
Jena was assigned a construction project by MUKTA to renew urban spaces by building public parks. “People tend to think women are not capable of doing construction work,” she says. “We faced several obstacles when we started. But we viewed it as a challenge and set out to do everything on our own”.
Her SHG partnered with MUKTA to build four urban parks. After completing this construction work successfully she and her SHG have proceeded to build six more.
I want to do even bigger work in the future.
Jena adds, beaming.
During his visit to Bhubaneshwar, Gates met with Jena and gained insights into her inspiring growth journey. He learnt more about the way SHG’s operate and remarked that the model with its ability to allow group members to choose the challenges they want to focus on, was proving to be a ‘powerful concept’.
The story of these women showcases what becomes possible when enterprising individuals leverage government schemes and policy, digitization, and their own sense of entrepreneurship to advance social good.
Creating Climate-Resilient Food
This spirit of innovation also colors the way some of India’s most pioneering scientists work in their respective fields. Dr. Swati Nayak works as a scientist at the New Delhi-based International Rice Research Institute. Her research focuses on the adoption and scaling of climate-resilient rice varieties . She says,
The greatest scientific innovations have meaning only when mainstreamed through institutions, policies, and stakeholders who are working with the farmer in the closest possible manner.
Her work sees her collaborating with international scientists who are developing climate resilient and green super rice (GSR) varieties. These have the capacity to withstand multiple stresses while also shielding the country’s smallholding farmers from the impact posed by climate change.
During his visit to the National Agricultural Science Complex in Delhi, Gates met Dr. Nayak and witnessed the valuable work she and her team are doing around scaling better climate resilient varieties of rice.
Together, the examples of these three women go to show why Gates believes that ‘one of India’s greatest gifts to the world is its ability to innovate’. In a month that commemorates International Women’s Day, we reiterate our commitment to advance India’s inclusive growth story in collaboration with the government and partners and celebrate inspiring leaders like Yashoda, Rajalakshmi and Dr. Swati.
