Ahead of International Women’s Day, DS Group, a multi-business corporation and a
leading fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) conglomerate, has announced a new
initiative titled #SaluteTheFarmHER to highlight the contribution of women farmers in agriculture.
India is an agrarian economy where about 54.6% of the total workforce is engaged in agricultural and allied sector activities. While farming is perceived to be a male activity, agriculture employs about 80% of rural women, as per Niti Ayog. Yet there is a lack of recognition. The group identified the need to sensitize the audience, create awareness, empower, and applaud rural women for their efforts.
Conceptualized by Grapes, the initiative began with a video to highlight this gap to people. The video showed when kids were asked to draw a farmer; most of them conjured up the image of a male. To change this perception, the group intends to approach leading media houses, agricultural bloggers, and stock footage portals to include the images of both male and women farmers while covering news.
Talking about the initiative, a spokesperson of DS Group said, “At DS Group, our CSR initiatives are designed on the principles that indigenous knowledge and skills of the local community are important towards sustainable development. We look at a holistic approach to add value, from creating awareness to implementation and ensuring sustainability. In the ‘New India’, rural women are leading the change in the social, economic, and environmental spheres. Empowering them can make way for a substantial leap towards the growth of the economy.”
Shradha Agarwal, Co-Founder & CEO, Grapes, spoke about the campaign, “Today, when all of us regularly turn to digital for all of our needs, wants, queries and much more, how something is represented in the online space has become all the more critical. The representation of female farmers, however, is severely lacking. And due recognition is quite necessary in order to garner opportunities for equitable growth. So, the #SaluteTheFarmHER is a small step in that direction with the hope of initiating larger change.”
Through their farm-based livelihood projects, which incubate women cultivators, business owners, and skilled farm laborers, DS Group’s CSR activities have worked towards improving the lives of 24,000 women farmers in 12 agrarian states till now.
