Changing climate, changing life
With this project, Climate Change Adaptation in Agriculture, FAO and the Global Environment Facility are helping hundreds of women farmers, like Laxmi, to improve their yields and incomes.
©Chris Steele-Perkins/Magnum Photos for FAO
Laxmi Sunar wants to provide her daughter with the best possible education so that she can have a bright future. This is Laxmi’s dream; it is the dream that all mothers have for their children. Today though, Laxmi’s main concern is that her family has enough food to eat.
“In the past five years, climate change has affected us. Rain is uncertain. Crops have been damaged by fog and hail stones,” explains Laxmi. “The yields from our crops are a lot less and we don’t have enough food.”
She sometimes goes hungry to give her daughter her share of the food.
With changing weather patterns and extreme events, Nepal has been hit hard by climate change. With little access to new farming methods or technologies, rural farmers feel these effects the most. Many of them cope with decreased yields by skipping meals, borrowing money at high interest rates or migrating.
“My husband has a big family. To support everyone he had to go abroad to find work. He thought going overseas to earn money would make me happy,” Laxmi describes.