00:00This goods transporter in North India's Unnao district is carrying unlikely cargo, a group of students rushing to be on time for school.
00:11The Good Harvest School teaches an unconventional syllabus, and students don't just cram information from books.
00:19I have been here ever since I heard about the school. It's the first school I have been to.
00:25My favorite subjects are agriculture and computers.
00:30Unlike regular schools, the classrooms are often empty.
00:36The students spend much of their day out in the fields, getting their hands dirty.
00:42Today, they're learning about seeds and how they interact with the seasons, which seeds can be planted before and after the rains.
00:50Teacher Ashita Nath helps a group of 12-year-olds to use online resources to learn about the differences.
00:57Girls here, of all ages, are planting the seeds of their future hopes.
01:04When we talk of dreams, girls don't have dreams, and that is because they have not seen someone achieve much in life.
01:15So they would do household chores, get married at an early age.
01:20And I think due to that, they think that even if they dare to dream, nothing much can happen.
01:26In a country with some of the lowest rates of female participation in formal jobs, women in villages still do much of the agricultural work.
01:43And yet, they rarely own the land or get any share in the profits from farming.
01:49In rural communities like Unao, women are deeply engaged in agriculture work.
01:57They are the one who is doing all the agriculture works, but they like sowing, weeding, harvesting crops and managing livestock.
02:05Yet, they are mostly seen as a helpers and not as a farmers, which they deserve.
02:11For Unao's girls to go from just labourers to farmers with their own ideas, education is key.
02:18But even girls who go to school tend to drop out before reaching higher education.
02:23If we compare boys and girls' education, boys have the access to better education and the literacy level for boys is around 70%.
02:31The Good Harvest School seeks to address this imbalance, because better educated girls would mean greater acceptance for ideas like sustainable farming.
02:44Niharika and her classmates are learning about the importance of sustainable farming methods, both in theory and with practical experiments.
02:52Armed with the latest information, they could become the first link in a new value chain driven by women.
02:58Take the humble peanut, for example.
03:04For Unao resident Pooja Nishad, it's provided a way to break out of domestic life and pursue her ambitions.
03:14At first, my husband didn't want me to go out to work.
03:18He was worried that others would accuse him of living off his wife's earnings.
03:22I told him that these days, both husbands and wives work.
03:27People do different kinds of work, like desk jobs or factory labour.
03:31Finally, he agreed to let me work.
03:36She's part of a women's self-help group who are all employees of a company called Nutty Village.
03:42They process locally grown peanuts into higher value products for the market.
03:46By working higher in the agricultural value chain, they move beyond the limits of their own farm.
03:57Time flies when I'm here.
03:59It feels good.
04:00I have a sense of determination, a sense that I can do it.
04:04Before I started working, I felt fearful.
04:07But once I began, that fear disappeared.
04:10Now I feel confident that I can accomplish it.
04:13Going out and interacting with people gave me confidence,
04:17so that now wherever I go, I don't hesitate to talk to anyone or to do my work.
04:26Back at the school, students are learning to grow better crops for workers like Pooja Nishad to process.
04:33Sudden excitement announces the discovery of earthworms they know will benefit the soil.
04:38We had classes in English, Hindi, Math, Social Studies and Sustainability.
04:46We also recently learned about how to preserve traditional seed varieties.
04:52The school now has a small seed bank, which stores native seed varieties for each sowing season.
04:57In this way, they are also playing a role in preserving local agricultural knowledge of well-adapted crop species.
05:09Once back home, Niharika helps her father prepare the day's milk deliveries from their family farm.
05:15He is among the fathers who are beginning to see the importance of helping their daughters get a better education.
05:29I pray she studies well.
05:32We haven't been able to do much to progress to a better life.
05:36I pray that she does something good in the future.
05:38The knowledge that Niharika and her classmates are gaining in school is also filtering out to neighbouring farmers in Unnao.
05:48Farms that for decades have always grown the same commercially lucrative crop are beginning to take a new approach.
05:58We've also noticed that because we had a kind of a model farm where we grew multiple crops,
06:04farmers around have also started doing that.
06:07You know, whereas earlier when we had come here, we found that they were into monocropping.
06:13This school is helping nurture a new generation of farmers who don't see their work as a burden,
06:18but as a path towards change and a more sustainable way of farming.
06:23We'll see you guys in the future.
06:28The future of those youths and children are all in the future.
06:30We hope to be able to learn more about this.
06:31We'll see that...
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