When women are empowered to decide what to grow, what inputs to use, when and where to sell – key shifts happen in agriculture and livelihoods. By empowering women in Marathwada as change-makers in agriculture, the WCRF model promoted resilient livelihoods for farming households while ensuring farming to become an economically viable venture.

In Maharashtra, the landholding under food crops has shrunk by 12%. However, the landholding for cash crops like sugarcane has almost doubled over the last three decades. But the water-stressed conditions in Marathwada make growing these crops unviable. Yet, several small and marginal farmers in this drought-hit region continue to grow water-intensive cash crops like soybean and sugarcane instead of growing food for themselves. Besides, growing these crops has created a dependence on expensive chemical fertilizers, pesticides and market bought hybrid seeds for the farmers, thereby, steeply increasing their cost of cultivation. With close to 80% of the cultivable land in Marathwada being rainfed, the water-intensive cash crops have a high risk of failure during a bad monsoon. Small and marginal farmers who take loans for purchasing farm inputs and grow only one variety of crops are the most affected. Moreover, women in these households are the most affected as they do not have ownership over land which limits their access to productive resources like finance, market, water and suitable government extension services.