Unipads grows crops with menstrual-blood compost to end a Gujarat kitchen taboo

In rural Gujarat, menstruation carries a heavy taboo: 82% of women are not allowed inside kitchens or near crops and food while menstruating, because menstrual blood is believed to be so impure that a single drop can destroy an entire harvest. Unipads, an Ahmedabad maker of affordable reusable cloth pads, saw the belief as both a health problem and a business problem — it silences period talk, discourages pad use and entrenches period poverty.

Instead of lecturing communities, Unipads and VML India put the taboo to a practical test. Women were asked to dispose of used, certified-organic pads containing menstrual blood in 'Ukedas', the compost pits already found on village farms, where cattle dung, fodder and kitchen waste collect through the year. The pads decompose and release nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium into the compost — the same nutrients crops need — and farmers spread the enriched soil on their fields.

The first seasons in Jamnagar and Devbhumi Dwarka produced more than 45 varieties of crops, including groundnut, cumin, wheat, tomatoes, carrots and cabbage — thousands of marked compost pits turned each village into an open-air demonstration. Unipads also announced a public dinner whose menu featured produce grown with the blood fertilizer, forcing the conversation about menstruation and food out into the open.

The visible results moved the debate: elected parliamentarians and state legislators made public appeals reaching 1.6 million people to break the taboo, more than 100,000 farmers began encouraging menstruating women around food, and five NGOs joined to scale the initiative. The work earned a D&AD 2024 Wood Pencil in the Impact category.