Jharkhand Woman Farmer Turns Climate Risk Into Rs 15 L Livelihood |
Every farming season used to begin the same way for Priyanka Kumari. She would step into her fields in Jharkhand’s Gola block, look at the soil beneath her feet, and then instinctively glance upwards.
The sky decided everything.
Too much rain could flatten crops overnight. Too little could drain the colour and weight from vegetables meant for the market. Weeks of labour often rested on a forecast that changed without warning. “For us, farming always came with fear,” Priyanka says. “We worked hard, but we never knew what the outcome would be.”
Seven years ago, when Priyanka, now 27, took up farming full-time after her marriage, this uncertainty was simply accepted as part of life. Agriculture was the family’s only livelihood. There was no backup plan.
Priyanka and her husband were not unfamiliar with education. She trained as a primary teacher. He holds a BTech in engineering. Yet their reality remained tied to traditional farming practices that demanded constant labour and investment, with returns that shifted from season to season.
Today, their five-member household works together on the farm. While Priyanka oversees planning, labour coordination, and household expenses, her husband manages market sales, and her in-laws support harvesting and daily farm work.
“We used to invest a lot, but the results were very less,” she recalls. Sudden rainfall often forced early harvesting, which damaged both the quality of produce and its price at the market.
Reena Kumari, a practitioner with Transform Rural India (TRI), had seen this story repeat itself across villages in Jharkhand. “People were using old techniques, wasting water, and using pesticides carelessly,” Reena........