With three children at home, the only time ZT Lalrithangi could study was late at night. So that is when she watched farming tutorials on YouTube and learnt what she could from other growers. She had a master’s degree in sociology and no training in agriculture. What she did have was an idea about strawberries, and the nerve to try it in Sangau, her village in Mizoram’s Lawngtlai district.
Two years on, that idea has put her on a world list. She planted her first 1,000 strawberry saplings in 2024. By her own account, her strawberry earnings crossed Rs 10 lakh in 2025. On 21 September, an email reached her from the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations. Aged 35 and known locally as Pi Mari-i, she had been named one of its 100 Women Heroes in Agrifood Systems and Rural Development. Reports say more than 600 nominees from 131 countries were considered. Only two of the 100 chosen are from India.
A government job that never came
Before farming, Mari-i taught at a private school. Like many graduates, she sat several competitive exams in the hope of a government post, and did not clear them. Her husband teaches at a government primary school and could have supported the family on his own.
She planted her first 1,000 strawberry saplings in 2024. Photograph: (Greenlife Crop Protection Africa)
She wanted more than that. She wanted to know what her education was for if she could not stand on her own feet, and she decided a government job did not have to be the only answer.
A tip from the next district
The answer came by word of mouth. Farmers in neighbouring Siaha district were growing strawberries well. In 2024, Mari-i planted about 1,000 saplings on a plot roughly five kilometres from Sangau.
She first went to the authorities for help and was told strawberries were outside the department’s project. So she began without them. Government assistance followed later, and the Horticulture Department was the one that told her about the FAO news before the formal email arrived.
The farm runs on family. Her husband and her parents-in-law share the work; the couple spends their weekends at the plot, and labourers are hired when the fields need more hands.
What the first harvest said
The first year brought in about Rs 1.5 lakh, enough to keep going and to grow. By her own account, her strawberry earnings in 2025 crossed Rs 10 lakh, close to seven times that first harvest. These figures come from Mari-i, as reported by PTI.
She now tends more than 10,000 strawberry plants across two hectares, with avocado, banana and other fruit and vegetables on the same land. Some of the berries are turned into strawberry wine for local markets. At the Mizoram Horti Fair 2026, she was named Lawngtlai district’s best farmer.
Farmers in neighbouring Siaha district were growing strawberries well. Photograph: (WRAL)
One farm, and a very big gap
Mari-i’s story is a small version of a global pattern. The FAO’s report on the status of women in agrifood systems found that 36 percent of working women worldwide are employed in this sector, against 38 percent of working men (2019 data). Women are less likely to run farms of their own. They are more often unpaid family workers or casual labourers.
The cost is high. On farms of the same size, land productivity is 24 percent lower where a woman is the manager, and women in agricultural wage work earn 82 cents for every dollar earned by men.
The FAO estimates that closing those gaps would lift global GDP by about 1 percent, nearly USD 1 trillion, and bring 45 million people out of food insecurity. It also says that narrowing gender gaps in jobs, education and income could close 52 percent of the food insecurity gap between women and men.
Two hectares in Lawngtlai will not settle that argument. But it is a clear picture of what the numbers describe, which is a woman with the land, the crop, and the final say over both.
Packing for Rome
The World Food Forum opens at the FAO’s headquarters in Rome on 12 October, and the FAO lists the 100 Women Heroes presentation ceremony for 15 October. When reports were filed, Mari-i was still completing her travel documents.
She now tends more than 10,000 strawberry plants across two hectares. Photograph: (Jagran Josh)
Asked what got her this far, she points to her family, the state Horticulture Department, and her faith. Whatever Rome brings, the plants in Sangau will still need picking when she is home.
