Apoorva Valli Shankar seeks to bring many women in Chennai to agriculture and introduce a Primary Education curriculum with food security planning as a key subject
Apoorva, a teacher from Thiruvanmiyur, represented India at the United Nations Committee on Food Security (UN-CFS) in Rome in 2018. Before that, in 2017, she represented the country at Brussels in 2017. By participating in panel discussions and debates with UN representatives and policy officers, Apoorva has a good understanding of food security planning.
Apoorva is now working on building a curriculum for Primary Education that will include food security.
“While we were discussing core issues in agriculture within our teams (which consisted of representatives from various countries), the idea of ‘Agrikua’ emerged. Agrikua is a social venture; it is a digital learning platform that empowers young women in agriculture through education, mentorship and financial opportunities. Our goal is to address the gender inequality gap in agriculture by empowering young women to become agripreneurs, leaders and role models, so that they can improve food and nutritional security,” she says.
As a teacher, Apoorva is looking to bringing many women in Chennai to the field of agriculture. She is also currently working on developing a curriculum on food security.
“For our unique concept, we won 10,000 Euros in funding and have been working in partnership with 4-H Kenya,” reveals Apoorva who is currently working on improving the platform.
Agriculture is the largest source of income for rural households, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. Women in Africa constitute anywhere between 30-80% of the workforce in agricultural production but are under-represented in the upper segments of the value chains. This is mainly due to challenges faced in the area of access to productive resources, knowledge gaps and stigmatisation. Agrikua aims to address this issue, says Apoorva.
She says Agrikua will soon expand to India.