Out in the fields, women farmers feel the effects of climate change – on their bodies and harvest

Generations of women in Sampreetha’s family have worked on their rice fields. During the Covid-19 lockdown, Sampreetha, who goes by her first name, was pursuing a master’s degree in agriculture. When her college closed, she returned home to Sakleshpur, Karnataka, and began helping on the family’s six-acre farm. She soon realised that paddy cultivation involved a chain of menial, labour-intensive tasks, most of them carried out by women.

Women farmers may not be familiar with the term “climate change”, but they constantly feel its effects on their bodies and in their pockets, she observes. “They don’t know the words ‘adaptation’ or ‘mitigation’. But they say, ‘it didn’t feel like this 10 years ago. Earlier, the rains came in June or July, but now they are late’,” Sampreetha says.

Paddy cultivation supplies half the global population with staple food, but also accounts for 48% of greenhouse gas emissions from croplands. However, many call these “survival” emissions as they provide livelihood to millions of farmers across economies. India refused to sign the Global Methane Pledge at COP26 in 2021 held at Glasgow, UK, wherein countries promised a 30% reduction of emissions by 2030, since it threatened the livelihood of the large population of small and marginal farmers.

Studies, however, show that these farmers are...

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