« WINGS: » Women’s International News Gathering Service: India's Coffee Women and the feminization of farming
Coffeee has been grown for generations in the hilly Kordagu (AKA Coorg) region of Karnataka state. Like other small-scale agriculture in the era of globalization, financial rewards are small and women carry a growing amount of the work. Producers/hosts: Smita Ramanathan and Manju Venkat. Interviews (all in in Madikeri, Kodagu district, Karnataka state): 1. Saleela Patkar: An engineer and researcher on women in agriculture, who returned to her family's ancestral lands to grow organic coffee 2. Shantamma: Longtime coffee farm labourer. 3. Kaveramma: Worked coffee plantations since childhood; grows coffee, cardamom, pepper, vegetables and paddy. (Also runs a small restaurant with her sons as cooks). 4. 74 year old Leelavathi manages a 40 acre farm. She took over when her husband went into politics. 5. Mrinalini, a trained engineer, helps her mother Leelavathi on their farm.
WINGS: Women’s International News Gathering Service is an all-woman independent radio production company that produces and distributes news and current affairs programs by and about women around the world. An award-winning, weekly half hour radio program by and about women around the world.
“Raising Women’s Voices through Radio Worldwide” since 1986.