Ratnanagri Mahila Farmer Producer Company Limited

This group is a bit different because it is mainly the women from around Hatkhamba in Ratnagiri who started it. We are based out of house number 1122. It is a local effort to get the women farmers more involved in the business side of things. In this part of Maharashtra, we have a lot to deal with, from the coastal weather to the specific crops that grow well here. We are not doing this to get famous or anything. We just saw that if we worked as a group, we could manage our produce better. Most of us have been farming our whole lives, helping our families, and now we are doing it for ourselves through this company. It gets pretty loud when we all meet up to talk about the season's plans. There is a lot of practical stuff to handle, like getting the bags ready or sorting the harvest. We do not have a big mission statement written on a wall. We just want to make sure the work we do in the fields actually pays off at the end of the day. Ratnagiri is a good place to live, but the work is hard and it never really stops. We help each other out with the heavy lifting and the paperwork, which none of us really like doing but it is necessary. It keeps us busy and gives us a reason to get together.