WHEN WOMEN LEAD: ODISHA’S PATH TO CLIMATE-RESILIENT AGRICULTURE
The climate crisis is on our doorstep, and it is gendered. Climate change induced food security affects women and children the most, but these inequities are not unalterable. As we step into the International Year of the Woman Farmer, we are reminded that the future of agriculture lies not just in seeds and soil, but in the hands that till them. In Odisha, as across India, those hands are increasingly women’s. Ensuring that women’s needs and capacities are reflected in policy design, resource allocation, and data systems is central to building climate-resilient, nutrition-secure agricultural systems and makes business sense.
The Interlocking Crises: Women’s Disempowerment, Climate Catastrophes, and the Triple Burden of Nutrition
India's agricultural challenges cannot be understood in isolation. Climate change, gender inequality, and malnutrition form inter-connected polycrises, each amplifying the others. Women constitute nearly two-thirds of India's agricultural workforce, yet they own only 11% of agricultural land and earn 22% less than men for similar work. At the same time, India faces some of the world's highest rates of female anemia (57%), alongside rising obesity and non-communicable diseases.
Climate shocks deepen these inequities. In the six years preceding 2021, India lost 69 million hectares of crops to extreme weather. Women farmers, with limited access to credit, insurance, extension services, and climate information, are the least equipped to adapt to the rapidly changing climate. When disasters strike, food insecurity rises, and women and children bear the greatest nutritional burden —skipping meals, reducing dietary diversity, and suffering lasting health and economic impacts.
This nexus is particularly visible in Odisha. The state has experienced devastating cyclones— Phailin, Hudhud, Fani and Amphan—that damaged over one million hectares of farmland in recent years. While, 49% of the workforce is engaged in agriculture and allied activities, the workforce engaged in agriculture as cultivators and agricultural laborers increased between 2019 to 2024, powered by a significant increase in women’s participation from 33.1 lakhs to 56.9 lakhs. This growing participation of women underscores not only their vulnerability but also the opportunity to center women in policymaking and build a more resilient agricultural future.
A Conceptual Framework: From Vulnerabilities to Agency
Addressing interconnected challenges requires moving beyond siloed interventions. IFPRI's work under the Gender, Climate Change, and Nutrition Integration Initiative (GCAN) initiative, which works in Odisha, India, along with 4 countries in Africa, offers a conceptual framework that integrates three critical dimensions:
First, recognizing women not as beneficiaries but as agents of change. Women's empowerment in agriculture—measured through decision-making power, asset ownership, access to productive resources, and participation in collective action—is strongly associated with improved household nutrition and resilience to climate shocks. Yet empowerment remains constrained by structural inequalities in land rights, wage parity, and social norms.
Second, embedding gender in climate action. Women’s knowledge of seeds, water management, and biodiversity is vital for adaptation, yet they are systematically excluded from climate extension services, weather systems, and disaster planning. Gender-responsive action should address women’s specific vulnerabilities while building on their adaptive capacities and local knowledge.
Third, linking agricultural transformation to gender-responsive nutrition. Agriculture's role extends beyond production to shaping household diets and nutritional status. Climate shocks that reduce crop yields livestock production and increase food prices disproportionately affect female-headed and poorer households, forcing trade-offs between food quality and quantity. Resilient, diversified farming systems can strengthen both food security and nutrition, but only if the women who work the land have equal access to the land, as well as information, inputs, and markets.
Odisha as a Living Laboratory: Leveraging the power of women farmers
Odisha has already demonstrated substantial commitment to gender equity in agriculture, creating a foundation upon which transformative change can be built. The state's journey offers important lessons in both achievements and remaining challenges. As of 2023, Odisha had 85 schemes exclusively for women and 420 other schemes with at least 30% allocation for women. Odisha’s total gender budget of 2022-23 stood at 44.7% of the state’s total expenditure.
Perhaps most remarkable is the transformation in avenues for women's economic participation. Through the Subhadra Shakti program, over 7 million women have joined self-help groups, gaining access to credit, training, markets, and leadership opportunities. These are not merely numbers—they represent millions of women gaining voice, agency, and economic independence. SHG membership has broad-based benefits, and is associated with increase in women’s political participation, better health and nutritional outcomes, and increased use of public schemes.
Several initiatives demonstrate the power of gender-intentional design. Under the Shree Anna Abhiyan, women's SHGs process millets for government nutrition programs and are encouraged to establish their own enterprises, creating a direct chain from climate-resilient crops to women's enterprise to improved child nutrition. Women "Krushi Mitras" have been trained to provide agricultural advice, challenging the norm that extension services are a male domain, and should target male landowners.
Driving Change for Greater Equity: The Odisha Government Gender Resource Cell
Building on IFPRI’s work in Odisha to develop Inclusive Agriculture Transformation (IAT) indicators for the Department of Agriculture and Farmers’ Empowerment (DAFE), the upcoming Gender Resource Cell (GRC) represents the next step—embedding gender into the state’s data-driven, climate-resilient agricultural policies. Through GRC we intend to integrate gender into the governance architecture itself—planning, budgeting, program design, and monitoring. As a technical partner in GRC, IFPRI will develop a gender analysis manual with a monitoring and learning framework to track progress and guide gender-disaggregated data collection in line with the state’s digital initiatives.
Odisha's 2025-2030 strategy aims to reach 7 million small-scale producers, including 40% women, with improved access to technologies, markets, and services. The GRC will be instrumental in translating this ambition into reality, ensuring that the millions of women farmers targeted are not just counted but truly empowered. With an extensive network of women SHGs providing last-mile delivery, the Shree Anna Abhiyan demonstrating market linkages for climate-smart crops, and new digital platforms like Krushak Odisha offering AI-enabled advisory services, the pieces are in place for a genuine transformation—if they are woven together with gender intentionality.
Dr. Arabinda Kumar Padhee is the Principal Secretary to the Government, Department of Agriculture and Farmers Empowerment, Government of Odisha; Dr Claudia Ringler is the Director, Natural Resources and Resilience at IFPRI; Dr Muzna Alvi is a Research Fellow at IFPRI and Ms. Vandana Shankar Vidhani is a Research Analyst at IFPRI.
Cover photo credit: Animesh Satapathy, Development Corner (DCOR)
