“We Spread Rice in Our Courtyards”: How Rural Kano Women Turn Paddies Into Profits

Agricultural cooperatives in Hawai'i pool small farmers' resources to collectively process, market, and sell their crops, with successful examples like the Hawai'i 'Ulu Cooperative enabling nearly 200 members to reach broader markets and the Hawaii Cattle Producers Cooperative shipping 8,000-9,000 cattle annually while returning surplus profits to rancher-members, though some co-ops have failed due to declining membership and market pressures.

The Nigerian Conservation Foundation donated two solar-powered freezers (and a private business investment in additional solar freezers) to the off-grid coastal community of Ayetoro. Now, affordable and sustainable alternatives to the (previously generator-powered) cold storage can meet the community's needs to preserve fish and reducing post-harvest losses.

Over 3,000 tribal farmers in Odisha are using the System of Rice Intensification (SRI)—an organic method that uses 92% less seed, no standing water, and traditional formulations—to double their rice yields, increase incomes, eliminate dependence on expensive chemicals and moneylenders, and revive 70+ indigenous rice varieties while improving soil health.

Jubilee Justice, a nonprofit helping small-holder Black farmers in the South grow specialty rice with a “dry-land” method developed in the 1970s and 1980s (rather than growing rice in flooded paddies, farmers treat rice like a vegetable, irrigating it as needed), now supports 10 farmers from Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Kentucky; together, they have lowered the global warming potential of their rice production by 25 percent on average.

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.

In Dandabazar, a community-wide shift to commercial cauliflower farming was supported by local government seed distribution and subsidies for modern tools. This transformed a food-insecure hill village into a recognized vegetable-producing hub, enabling individual farmers to grow their businesses.

A group of Kenyan coastal women used a blue economy grant to establish a mud crab-fattening enterprise in Jomvu Creek, generating up to $310/month in collective income and planting nearly 1 million mangrove seedlings.

Gleaning organizations across the U.S. collect surplus food from farms, grocery stores, and markets that would otherwise go to waste, then distribute it through free-food markets and food banks to address both food insecurity and environmental harm in their communities.

Solar-powered cold storage units operated through Farmer Producer Organizations in India have reduced post-harvest losses from as high as one-third of crops to minimal levels. This enables smallholder farmers to save on storage and transportation costs while gaining control over when to sell their produce at better prices.

Twenty women in Kaduna, Nigeria formed a cooperative in 2015 that pooled their farm labor earnings to collectively purchase land, transforming them from hired laborers earning ₦2,000-₦10,000 per day into independent landowners who now harvest enough to support their families' education and healthcare while contributing food to their community.