Field Notes from Ahmedabad: A Journey Through SEWA’s Grassroots Initiatives
by Lakshmi Menon and Vidhatri Thakkar.
What possibilities emerge when climate researchers and women-led cooperatives come together to build resilience?
This question anchors our collaboration with the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) Federation — a network that has long supported informal women workers through cooperatives. As a knowledge partner, CSTEP is helping strengthen SEWA’s climate capacity to inform their future strategies and partnerships.
We visited rural Gujarat to understand grassroots resilience and explore cooperative models, accompanied by Jasmeet Singh and Sonakshi Yadav from SEWA Federation, whose deep local knowledge helped us connect with cooperative members and their landscapes.
Our conversations — some planned, many spontaneous — offered glimpses into how these women are navigating economic and climate challenges with collective strength and lived wisdom.
Navigating Climate Challenges in Agriculture
We set off in the morning for Parsantaj Village, Kheda Taluka, 50 kms south of Ahmedabad to visit the Kheda Women Farmers’ Cooperative. There, we met Alka ben, a warm and resourceful woman who heads the cooperative, supporting farmers across 10 villages. After some initial hesitation, she opened up about her work, which included facilitating farmers’ access to farm equipment, distributing fodder, and promoting biogas plants to reduce firewood dependency. Conversations naturally transitioned to farmers’ experience with erratic rainfall patterns, temperature shifts, and rising human-wildlife conflicts — in this case, monkeys ravaging crops. Though unfamiliar with ‘climate change adaptation’, she shared that farmers are turning to cash crops like tobacco to offset losses from traditional crops and supplement incomes.
We then drove to the neighbouring Vasna-Khurd village, where we met the ever-enthusiastic Rinku ben. She opened up about her transition to organic farming despite being challenged by topsoil and groundwater depletion, and the community’s persistent belief in chemical-intensive agriculture. This raised a crucial question: How can we shift toward sustainable farming without jeopardising livelihoods?
We also observed that though Rinku ben grows fodder, she still needs to buy cattle feed — a reflection on how small farmers remain tethered to the market due to inconsistent yields, lack of storage, and concerns about yield quality. This highlights the broader challenge of self-sufficiency versus market dependency and throws up another pertinent question: What would it take to make organic farming not just an ideal but also a viable reality?
Communication and Value Systems
Over lunch, Jasmeet, Sonakshi, and the two of us discussed the challenge of communicating about climate change in local languages. ‘Climate change’ — in both Hindi and Gujarati — is jalvayu parivartan, which is confused with environment pollution. Across farmer conversations, climate change is frequently conflated with environmental degradation (plastic pollution, deforestation, urbanisation, etc.), making it hard to isolate climate-specific issues like heatwaves, droughts, and erratic rainfall.
Jasmeet noted that some farmers view climate extremes as ‘acts of God’, meant to be endured rather than addressed. In conversations with farmers, SEWA has often encountered a quiet resignation, where weather shocks are accepted as fate. But if climate change is viewed as divine will, where does that leave adaptation? Or can faith itself be reimagined to be a catalyst for grassroots climate action?
Sustaining Craft in a Changing World
By afternoon, we arrived at SEWA Ni Haveli in Dhal Ni Pol, home to the Abodhana Handicrafts Cooperative. Nasheman ben and Amisha ben welcomed us into their workspace with quiet grace and warmth.
They informed us that the haveli — a heritage building — is restricted from making structural modifications, leading to constrained electrical set-ups and limited ventilation. In Ahmedabad’s intensifying summers, dehydration and fatigue — coupled with menstrual challenges — have affected work productivity and earnings.
Though unchanged structurally, the co-operative’s craft has adapted to the needs of the market. Once specialising in vegetable-dye printing, it has moved towards basic stitching, embroidery, patchwork, and upcycling, pushed away from the traditional crafts by the shifting market demands. Adapting has become a way of sustaining their craft and livelihoods.
A Dairy Cooperative’s Path to Success
Our final visit took us to the dairy collection centre at Pethapur in Gandhinagar district, run by Sita ba, a steadfast 79-year-old matriarch. Unlike most other cooperatives, this one is nearly self-sufficient, though challenges in attaining long-term sustainability remain. This relative self-sufficiency stems from low operating costs, thanks to the use of rooftop solar panels and digitised systems for weighing, testing, and immediate payment notifications, which reduce delays and build trust among members.
The collective’s operations are also structured to align with early-morning and late-evening milk cycles, optimising both member participation and yield. But rising temperatures, especially pre-monsoon, now threaten seasonal incomes, underscoring the vulnerability to a climate-uncertain future.
Final Thoughts: Scaling Up Grassroots Solutions for Empowerment
As we drove back, what lingered on weren’t just the stories, but the deeper undercurrents they revealed. These women-led cooperatives embody resilience, innovation, and a deep-rooted sense of community. However, systemic gaps persist. From our visits, some key insights and questions are beginning to take shape, nudging us toward deeper engagement:
a. Adaptation is happening intuitively, even if unnamed. Can cooperatives build tools to make everyday practices visible and valued within climate policy spaces?
b. Women continue to move forward despite infrastructure deficits. What financial, structural, and social measures can ensure that resilience doesn’t come with an added burden?
c. Faith and language shape climate response. Can climate communication strategies draw from local beliefs, faith, and vernaculars?
d. Regenerative practices are emerging, though often without being called that. Could farming cooperatives lead the development of traditional knowledge toolkits for resilience?
e. Livelihoods are only part of the story. How can we build enabling environments that centre on women’s agency and dignity?
We wrapped up the day with not just admiration, but also stimulation, contemplating how institutions like SEWA and partners can move from being observers of climate resilience to enablers of systemic change. These women are not only adapting to change but also shaping it. The opportunity now is to boost their spirit and efforts with full awareness of a climate-uncertain future.
The authors work in the Adaptation and Risk Analysis group at the Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP), a research-based think tank.
