The Nigerian Women Who Went from Labourers for Hire to Landowners

Women crab farmers in coastal Maharashtra are earning substantial incomes by raising crabs in mangrove forests, creating a financial incentive that protects these critical ecosystems while building climate resilience and women's economic independence.

With the help of funding from foundations and charities, Indian women’s groups such as the Dooni dairy cooperative are leveraging solar power to simplify their work and help their businesses grow. Since purchasing solar-powered fridges to store extra milk, most women in the dairy cooperative have seen their profits double.

The Barkum Women Rice Processors Association in rural Kano, Nigeria, secured a collective ₦8.8 million loan through cooperative action and training, enabling 38 women to build profitable rice-processing businesses that have financed their children's education and generated monthly incomes for members.

Seaweed farming on Pemba Island is allowing women to earn income and support their families. Improved cultivation techniques introduced by the Tanzanian government and The Nature Conservancy via a training program have not only accelerated economic but also environmental rehabilitation.

A women’s cooperative in Malawi empowers women to diversify their incomes by selling a variety of produce instead of relying only on selling fish. The women in the collective split the proceeds and buy fish in groups to combat increasing sex-for-fish requests from fishermen.

A dairy cooperative in Ukraine has brought jobs to farmers in the region and allowed them to work together to sell their milk on the market. An international nonprofit helped the Andriyivka Prosperity cooperative get off the ground. While villagers were skeptical of joining at first, and there are still challenges with operating the cooperative, there are 129 members that sell their milk. “The cooperative has halted the extinction of the village, allowing young people to stay in their homelands and have jobs and a livelihood,” says one of the villagers.

Balad Kalan’s Scheduled Castes, popularly called Dalits, collectively bid to win the rights to fertile common lands that big landlords had taken control of. Each family contributed what they could and, after protests due to the lack of transparency in the bidding process, won 53 hectares, or one-third of the common land, which was distributed among 145 families. Fifty other villages have since won collective land rights by replicating the joint bidding process. An 11-member cooperative manages the land in each village, which is distributed to families in proportion to their monetary contribution.

The production of mezcal keeps increasing, drawing the attention of big liquor brands who want to invest in the mezcal market. Entrepreneurs in Mexico, are teaming up with rural farmers, their collaboration could potentially push out big companies from taking over the market.

A coordinated ward-level fertilizer distribution system in Madhesh Province reduced queues, favoritism, and black-market access for many farmers during the 2026 rice planting season. The system involved municipal committees, cooperatives, and stricter monitoring.

The Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative (Y2Y) has built over 204 wildlife crossings, fencing systems, and protected corridors across a 3,400-kilometer stretch of the Rocky Mountains. Since Y2Y's founding in 1997, reports of wildlife-vehicle collisions have substantially reduced, thousands of safe animal crossings have been documented, and 9.8 million hectares of connected habitat has been protected.