The cooperative sector in India has largely excluded women. While the available data is limited, according to NCUI reports from 2010, women’s cooperatives are less than 2 per cent of the total share of India cooperatives, and their membership is less than half a per cent of the total membership in cooperatives. The cooperative model is a powerful tool for the emancipation of poor, marginalized informal women workers. When individual workers, both producers and service-providers, come together in cooperatives, they begin seeing themselves as owners and managers of their trade.
This report reveals the potential of platform cooperatives owned and managed by women farmers, using the example of an Indigenous women farmers’ cooperative—Megha Cooperative—which is a member of the SEWA Cooperative Federation in Gujarat, India.
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