Women-led Farm Support: The Role of Kudumbashree and Farmer Producer Organizations in Supporting Smallholder Agriculture in Kerala

Abstract

Women-led institutions in Kerala—particularly Kudumbashree Joint Liability Groups (JLGs) and Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs)—have emerged as innovative platforms that support smallholder agriculture, enhance community resilience, and challenge entrenched gender hierarchies. This article investigates how these institutions function as alternative infrastructures of care and cooperation in the face of agrarian precarity and systemic exclusion. Drawing on qualitative fieldwork across five sites in Kerala during August–September 2024, including five focus group discussions and twenty semi-structured interviews, the research identifies four key thematic areas: social capital and survival, leadership and decision-making, market access and value, and empowerment and resilience. Each theme is further broken into sub-themes reflecting emotional solidarity, ritual practices, emergent voice, institutional power asymmetries, and shifting household dynamics. While Kudumbashree JLGs build deep-rooted emotional trust through relational governance, FPOs facilitate broader market linkages and institutional visibility. Together, they create a hybrid governance ecology—one that balances embedded care with external accountability. Yet these models are not without frictions: FPOs often replicate gendered hierarchies despite their cooperative mandate, while JLGs may lack access to formal policy benefits. This study contributes to the literature on feminist institutionalism, hybrid governance, and rural transformation by centring women’s lived narratives and collective strategies. It calls for enabling policy frameworks that sustain diverse forms of cooperation, recognise local forms of knowledge, and institutionalise care as a development value. Kerala’s experience holds broader relevance for inclusive agrarian reform in India and across the global South.