Panchakanya Agriculture Cooperative

What it does: organic vegetables and crops
Based: Thaligun, Nepal
Founded: 2001
Employees: none
Revenue: $8,241 (2007)

Over the past decade, the residents of Nepal's capital, Kathmandu, have been consuming more vegetables and grains, so most farmers in the region decided to increase yields by intensifying their use of fertilizers and pesticides. One farmer in his 30s, Uddav Adhikari, insisted on a different path—organic production. Adhikari and his wife, Nirmala, founded Panchakanya in 2001, and it has since morphed into a women-run agricultural cooperative. It focuses on promoting organic production by its members, nonmembers, and other farmers in surrounding villages. Today Panchakanya has 35 members and is operating in the black. Male family members are invited to participate, but the women are the formal members and leaders. The cooperative has spawned copycat cooperatives across the region and has become a destination for visiting farmers, hosting five to six groups per year with as many as 30 participants per group.

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