How heatwaves have sparked new ways for women farmers in India to protect their crops

Deepikaben Rathva stood in her parched field in Chhotaudepur, in the Indian state of Gujarat, the earth cracking beneath her feet. A heatwave during May of 2024 had been unrelenting for days, scorching her crops into dust. For Deepikaben, an agricultural labourer, this wasn’t just about a poor harvest, it was about survival. Each dry stalk was a reminder of how vulnerable her life was to forces beyond her control.

Like millions of women farmers across India and around the world, Deepikaben’s livelihood is tied to land and climate. In the past, when both turned hostile, her options shrank to borrowing money from predatory lenders or cutting back on essentials. But this time, something unprecedented happened: Her mobile phone buzzed and a message from the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) informed her that an insurance payout had landed in her digital account.

Deepikaben hadn’t even filed a claim. The payout was automatic, triggered the moment the temperature breached a critical threshold. This money wasn’t a windfall, but it was agency. It was the power to decide – to buy seeds, to restart, to reclaim her future before the debt cycle could trap her.

Founded in 1972, SEWA, a member of the UN's Better Than Cash Alliance, is India’s largest trade union for informal women workers. It champions economic security and self-reliance for its more than 3 million members. It helps women like Deepikaben withstand the impact of extreme weather on their livelihoods by offering innovative insurance products with automatic payouts, eliminating complex claims processes.

Products like parametric insurance are sorely needed by women farmers like Deepikaben. A 1.5°C rise in global average temperatures could expose 14% of the world to severe heatwaves every five years.

In India, where farming relies on seasonal monsoons, even small shifts in conditions can disrupt entire seasons. And rural women farmers – who already have less access to finance, smaller plots and fewer land rights – bear the brunt of climate change.

The Unjust Climate, a 2024 FAO report, shows female-headed households lose 8% more income to heat stress and 3% more to floods, compared to male-headed households. It also projects that a 1°C increase in long-term average temperatures could reduce female-headed households' income by 34% more, on average, compared to male-headed households.

This erosion of economic agency perpetuates systemic inequality. Women with lower incomes are less able to invest in climate-resilient seeds, tools and techniques. They are also more likely to be pulled into unpaid labour – caring for family members or managing household survival strategies – when crises hit. This isn’t due to a lack of skill, it’s the result of limited financial buffers, insecure land rights and constrained decision-making power.

SEWA’s parametric insurance was launched in 2023 in partnership with Arsht-Rock, a climate resilience solutions provider, and it was expanded in 2024 with support from Climate Resilience for All, a global climate adaptation NGO. It provides automatic payouts when extreme heat persists for two days. Using real-time weather data, it eliminates complex claims, ensuring women receive support without bureaucratic hurdles. The weather itself triggers relief.

The SEWA insurance programme has grown from 21,000 women in five districts in 2023, to 50,000 across 22 districts in the states of Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra in 2024. It covers a diverse range of informal workers, from farmers to waste recyclers.

Each woman contributes INR 250 ($3) annually. When temperatures exceed 40°C, all insured women receive INR 400 ($4.80) in direct cash assistance, offering crucial support for income loss even before a formal claim is triggered. The total payout in 2024 reached INR 2.92 crore ($350,859).

These figures are not abstract numbers – they represent women, like Deepikaben, who are making choices free from the suffocating grip of emergency debt.

The insurance payouts that Deepikaben and her fellow SEWA members receive are not just money, they give these women leverage they could not achieve alone. This is how agency is built – collectively, through tools that respect women’s time, mobility and access.

Rekhaben, another SEWA member, recalls: “When the heat ruined my fodder crop, I thought I’d have to sell my goats. But the insurance payout let me buy feed – my decision, no need to ask my husband or in-laws.”

This decision-making power is transformative, especially in rural India, where women’s financial agency is often limited. SEWA’s approach reflects the UN’s Reaching Financial Equality for Women report: Access alone isn’t enough, financial services must be designed to protect women’s funds, time and autonomy.

SEWA aims to expand its parametric insurance into a Livelihood Recovery and Resilience Fund (LRRF), offering not just payouts, but low-cost credit, emergency grants and climate adaptation financing. This comprehensive safety net would help women recover from extreme weather events while also equipping them with the means to build more climate-resilient livelihoods. It would foster agency by giving women a range of financial tools they control directly, putting power into their hands before, during and after a crisis.

This aligns with a Better Than Cash Alliance initiative to encourage the use of digital payments to accelerate climate action. Inclusive financial services can help women anticipate, absorb and adapt to climate shocks. Beyond emergency relief, responsible digital payments drive long-term resilience and sustainable development.

In a world where climate change disproportionately threatens rural women’s livelihoods, building agency is not optional – it’s essential. With every insurance payout, every saved goat, every acre replanted, women like Deepikaben and Rekhaben are writing a new narrative – one where they are not victims, but decision-makers, leading their communities into a more resilient future.

Abhishek Srivastava, Communications and Advocacy Specialist, Asia-Pacific, Better Than Cash Alliance, and Dr. Rajvi Joshipura, Senior Coordinator, SEWA, also contributed to this article.