In the Eastern Himalayan Region (EHR), women perform over 70 per cent of the agriculture and allied activity-related labor, traditionally working on labor-intensive tasks in horticulture, sericulture and livestock farming. Traditional agriculture practices like shifting cultivation or Jhum involve extensive female participation as they are responsible for sowing, weeding and harvesting. Despite being an active stakeholder, socio-economic barriers, gender biases, inadequate institutional support, lack of decision-making power, access to credit and ownership rights over land limit their entrepreneurial potential.
But the emergence of women-led farming cooperatives has provided a mechanism to address these disparities and help them take up leadership roles and create better economic opportunities for themselves and support the rural economy. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), women-led cooperatives contribute to at least three SDGs – eliminating poverty, promoting gender equality, and economic growth. As the name suggests, co-operatives are modeled on the idea of cooperation and resource pooling under an institutional framework thus effectively contributing to building women’s human capital, increase their employability and reduce their vulnerabilities to poverty by providing professional training and work experience.
Transforming agriculture: Women taking the lead in cooperatives
In the EHR, communities have historically been leveraging the concept of cooperatives to create and protect common natural assets like village ponds, sacred groves and managing natural resources. But this has primarily been a male-dominated movement as they have held rights over resources and consequently all decision-making. However, recent times have witnessed a drastic change where women have taken up lead in forming and managing cooperatives and challenging the status quo vying for better social and economic status. Successful models like SEWA Bharat and Prabhavana have shown how such collective ownership can help overcome systemic challenges. Additionally, government support in the form of Multi-State Cooperative Societies (Act) 2002 etc. or setting up of the Ministry of Cooperation have been instrumental to ensure women participation in the cooperative sector.
Women-led cooperatives act as a platform for women to come together and take collective action enabling members to pool resources, share knowledge and build strong market linkages. Such cooperative models have been pivotal in transforming subsistence farming into more economically viable enterprises for them. Having a cooperative institution helps achieve economies of scale thus reducing the input costs and creating more opportunities to sell the produce at prices on par with the market. The Assam State Livelihood Mission in 2016-17 brought the Mahila Kisan Sashaktikaran Pariyojna (MKSP), a subcomponent of NRLM, which aimed to improve the status of women in agriculture by empowering them through community institutions and promoting sustainable farming.
The project aimed to target 12,500 women SHGs across five districts focused on enhancing women’s opportunities in agriculture and leveraging their collective strength for long-term sustainability. Recently, in January 2025, the Meghalaya government approved the setting up of Pla Tangka Cooperative Society (PTCS), led by the department of community and rural development in partnership with the Centre for Research in Schemes & Policies to aimed at strengthening the financial ecosystem for Self-Help Groups (SHGs) across the state.
There are several highlights from the EHR on how women led co-operatives have helped them achieve self-sufficiency. In Manipur’s Ukhrul district, Ringyuichon Vasum has been instrumental in empowering women through microcredit and self-help groups. She facilitated the formation of numerous women’s SHGs providing them with microcredit to venture into organic farming, poultry rearing, embroidery, food processing, and handloom weaving.
Over 13,000 women have benefited from this enhanced economic status while also steering them away from illicit logging and plantations.3 Seno Tsuhah, a social activist who hails from the Chakhesang Naga community in Chizami, Nagaland, has been popularising sustainable livelihoods through textile weaving, engaging local women in the production of traditional handloom products thus helping them with a steady income source and upward socio-economic mobility. In Tripura, the Jana Unnayan Samiti Tripura (JUST) through the FARM Northeast program is empowering communities through women-led collective farming. It helped women farmers achieve autonomy in food production while enhancing food security and livelihoods.
These cases suggest that if implemented well, women-led cooperatives have the potential to impact lives at scale and address society’s underlying biases through economic incentives.
Challenges and way forward
Amidst all the push to promote women-led cooperatives in the region, women have not been able to entirely claim their agency and still face several structural challenges. Inadequate infrastructure, limited access to credit and market linkages, societal norms often affect their growth prospects. One of the key areas of focus needs to be government’s policy and institutional support. In 2021, the government set up the Ministry of Cooperation (MoCOOP) to provide legal, administrative and policy support to the cooperative movement in India but it needs to catch up to regional needs as well.
Strategic coordination with the Ministry of Development of the North Eastern Region and the North Eastern Council (NEC) could help understand the regional needs and provide a policy framework to enable women cooperatives. Secondly, regular capacity building programs can equip women with necessary skills in modern farming techniques, financial management and leadership. This can be clubbed with facilitating connections between cooperatives and markets thus reducing intermediaries and ensuring better profits for the producers. While data suggests that women participation in such programs has increased between 2021-2024, a more localised capacity building program will go a long way in ensuring equitable access for improved outcomes.
Women-led farming co-operatives in the region are not just agricultural collectives but a catalyst for social change and economic development. In states which do not have industrial infrastructure and are entirely dependent on agriculture, scaling up the co-operative movement can help enhance economic resilience, ensure food security and contribute to the region’s growth and sustainable future.
The author is Chief Communications Architect, Balipara Foundation
