Climatelinks Photo Gallery

A woman potato farmer inspects a demonstration farm in Hooghly, West Bengal. With a group of other women, she has leased land and entered the PepsiCo supply chain as an independent farmer for the first time. This was also the first women-led PepsiCo demonstration farm in West Bengal, increasing recognition of women’s role in agriculture. Over the past two years, USAID and PepsiCo have reached over 1,000 women farmers with improved agriculture techniques and provided gender awareness training to all PepsiCo staff in West Bengal. The innovative partnership between the USAID-funded Integrated Land and Resource Governance Program and PepsiCo is demonstrating that women’s empowerment can increase the potato supplier base for PepsiCo, improve yields and profitability for rural farmers and PepsiCo, and promote the adoption of sustainable and regenerative farming practices that advance USAID’s and PepsiCo’s global climate change commitments. Working in partnership with women, USAID and PepsiCo are learning from women in the community about the constraints and opportunities for their increased participation and benefit sharing in the PepsiCo potato supply chain.

The ‘Midday Meal Scheme’ is a school meal programme of the Government of India designed to improve the nutritional status of school going children nationwide. The program supplies free lunches on working days for children in primary & upper primary classes in Government, Government aided, local body, Education Guarantee Scheme & alternate innovative education centers. Madarsa & Maqtabs is supported under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan & National Child Labour Project Schools are run by the Ministry of Labour.

Through this scheme, the Indian Government serves 120,000,000 children in over 1,265,000 schools & education guarantee scheme centers. It’s the largest such program in the world. This picture shows rural school children who are participating in the above mentioned ‘Midday Meal Scheme’ program during their lunch at a school campus in the East Medinipur district, West Bengal, India.

India is a country known for it’s sweltering heat, but recent years have brought unprecedented (and early) high temperatures to the region, with a deadly outcome. Since 2000, India has had three serious droughts. The World Bank has estimated that the 2012 drought reduced the country’s gross domestic product by half a percentage point. On average, 2,500 people have perished as a direct result of blistering heat waves. Most of the dead are believed to be homeless, elderly, and laborers who were unable to escape the soaring temperatures.

This picture shows two children who have become involved by planting a sapling in dry land with the hope of a better tomorrow at a village in West Bengal, India.

Climate change & energy security are two of the most significant challenges the world faces today. As India fast tracks its developmental agenda, energy consumption will soar. Fossil fuels are a finite resource that will gradually disappear. Therefore, the government of India is focused towards building its renewable energy capacity.  

As India increasingly turns to clean energy to power its growing economy, wind energy is poised to provide the foundation of the renewable energy program in India. The wind energy sector is India’s largest & most successful renewable energy. The wind power program in India was initiated towards the end of the Sixth Plan, in 1983-84. Presently India has an installed wind power generation capacity of more than 26,000 MW making it the fourth largest in the world. However, the potential for wind power generation in India has been estimated at 302 GW at 100 meters’ height.  

This picture shows India’s largest wind turbine project, which runs at Jaisalmer in Rajasthan, India. 

Solar Power in India is a fast developing industry. The country's installed solar capacity reached 28.18 GW as of 31 March 2019. The Indian government had an initial target of 20 GW capacity for 2022, which was achieved four years ahead of schedule. In 2015 the target was raised to 100 GW of solar capacity (including 40 GW from rooftop solar) by 2022, targeting an investment of US$100 billion.  

The use of cow-patties/ cow-dung cakes are a rural tradition in India. They are a sustainable fuel material that form part & parcel of the traditional way of village life in India.

Dung cakes, made from the by-products of animal husbandry, are traditionally used as fuel in India for making food in a domestic hearth called a Chulha. They are made by hand by village women & are traditionally made from cow or buffalo dung. One dung cake, on average, gives 2100 KJ worth of energy.

This picture shows rural women who are preparing dung cakes, which will be used in the future to prepare food. In this way, India is running with The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the 2030 Agenda to protect the planet. This picture was taken in a village in Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India.

“My name is Mafija Begum. I started farming to earn money for my family because my husband was the only one earning an income in our family. I wanted to stand by his side and earn together.”

A partnership between USAID-funded Integrated Land and Resource Governance and PepsiCo in West Bengal is empowering women potato farmers like Mafija through sustainable farming practices that reduce emissions and increase resilience to climate impacts. At the same time, empowering farmers like Mafija increases household income and resilience while supporting PepsiCo’s and USAID’s climate change mitigation and adaptation commitments.

“People could not believe that women could be farmers. We decided we would show them that we can,” she says.

Improving WASH in India

Working in Chennai water treatment

Women Walking Across Rice Paddy in India

Women Carrying Water in India Caption: Addressing the issue of access to clean drinking water has the opportunity to strengthen women’s lives.