“When I came into this village as a 13-year-old bride, it was green. We never had problems getting fodder. Over the years, I have seen our forests vanish. Thankfully, things are slowly recovering. Two years ago, I joined the van panchayat samiti and have seen what we can achieve if we work together. Thanks to the fodder I now get from our protected forest,  these days I earn most of my income from the milk I sell.”

“The burden of troubles at home as well as on the field falls on the shoulder of women, in order to address these challenges we women need to be empowered as informed decision-makers through awareness and training women for record keeping and maintaining accounts. Government or institutions like CHEA should take up initiatives such as constructing more mangers at the block level, promoting horticulture mobile teams, constructing more biogas plants like UREDA Biogas plant, providing resources and support for roof rain water harvesting to address the issue of water shortage.”

“In this pond, men share our work. But roasting fish and sorting it before sending them to the market is solely done by us women. At the market, we often sell our fish at better prices than men because we have sorted and graded the fish and we know their value better; and because we often negotiate harder with our customers. So we manage to save some money. But men get lower prices and then often just drink their earnings away!” 

Sarpanch Balkesh from Budheli village (Uttar Pradesh) explains how women shoulder 75% of the agricultural tasks in his region, thereby being more vulnerable than men to climate change impacts.