Bakarpur Farmers Producer Company Limited

Bakarpur is a small place near Nai Bazar in Chandauli. Maya Devi’s place is where we keep our office, though it’s really just a room with some files and a table. Chandauli is known for its rice, and that’s mostly what we focus on. We are Bakarpur Farmers Producer Company. We started it because we were all facing the same problems with the buyers and the cost of inputs. Now we try to act as one group. It’s a lot of coordination. We spend our mornings out in the paddies and our afternoons talking about logistics. It’s not a polished business. We have dirt on the floor and our records are written in ink that sometimes smudges. We don’t have a website or a social media person. We just have our reputation in the market. People know us in Nai Bazar. We’re just local farmers trying to get a fair deal. Some days the machinery breaks down and everything stops. Other days everything goes right and we feel like we’re getting somewhere. It’s a lot of waiting for the right weather. We aren't doing this to get rich quick. We’re doing it because we live here and we want to keep farming. It’s our life. We take things as they come and try to help each other out when someone falls behind. We just take it one harvest at a time and try to make sure nobody gets left behind in the process.