Our story

We registered a company because a group was not enough.

For years, one farmer stood alone at the other person’s price. The work in the fields was already ours; what we needed was the company to act together.

The arrangement we grew up with

Ask any woman in this block how her family sold its paddy last year and you’ll hear a version of the same story. The trader came to the village and named a rate. There was no second rate to compare it to, no way to hold the crop and wait, and often an old debt at his shop that made refusing awkward. So the crop went, at his price.

The same thing happened in reverse at sowing. Seed and fertiliser were bought in small quantities, at retail, sometimes on credit at rates nobody wrote down. When the seed turned out to be poor, there was no one to complain to.

The work was already ours

In our villages, many men have left for work in Delhi, Punjab, Mumbai, the Gulf, and farming has been left to us. We are the ones in the field before light, transplanting paddy in standing water, weeding, cutting, threshing and drying grain on the roof.

We were already the farmers. What we did not have was the land record in our name, the Kisan Credit Card, the scheme, or the right to sell the crop as its owner. We were called helpers on our own land. This company was our answer to that.

What changed

Many of us had been in self-help groups for years. We had learned to save together, lend to each other, keep accounts, and sit in a meeting until a decision was reached. That was the training.

A savings group cannot hold a licence to trade in fertiliser, sign a supply contract with a processor, or open a current account in its own name and issue a receipt a buyer will accept. For that, we needed a company.

Incorporation

On 24 March 2023, the Registrar of Companies at the Central Registration Centre issued our Certificate of Incorporation. Rehra Mahila Kisan Farmer Producer Company Limited came into existence as a company limited by shares under the producer company provisions of the Companies Act, 2013.

What it means to be a producer company

A producer company is a real company registered with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, audited and filing returns, able to sign contracts and hold licences. It can only be owned by primary producers—the people who actually grow the crop. Outside investors cannot buy in and take control.

Voting is by member, not by shareholding, so a woman with two acres has the same voice in the general body as a woman with ten. The profit this company earns has nowhere to go except back to the women who supplied the crop that earned it.

Where we are now

The company brings together 3,054 women shareholders across 300 villages of Balrampur, farming about 2,200 hectares between them. We supply seed, organic manure and cattle feed; procure and aggregate produce; and last year paid ₹15,25,538 to members for crop sold through the company.

Registration at a glance

Legal name: Rehra Mahila Kisan Farmer Producer Company Limited
CIN: U01500UP2023PTC178900 · PAN: AAMCR5342K · TAN: LKNR13107D
Incorporated: 24 March 2023
Registered office: Ahiran Deeh, 6, Utraula Bazar, Utraula, Balrampur – 271604, Uttar Pradesh
Class: Company limited by shares