Ramilaben Parmar, a farm labourer in Rasnol village in Gujarat’s Anand district, is elated. She has just bought a new sewing machine worth Rs.10, 000 for her daughter so she can start her own business. Forty-year-old Parmar, a micro-entrepreneur, earned this money as part of her two months’ commission for selling farm produce under the brand name RUDI. RUDI is short for Rural Distribution Network, an agricultural cooperative business where its members, called RUDI bens, procure raw agricultural produce from marginal farmers at market prices, add value to that stock by cleaning and processing it before packaging and selling it at affordable prices through a network of over 3,000 RUDI bens. The business is owned and operated collectively by a group of women from the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), an Ahmedabad-based non-governmental organization. The RUDI Multi-Trading Company was set up in 2004 and has now grown to a point where it reaches over a million households annually with its high-quality, affordable, brand RUDI products.

Click Here To Read More