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Mantodiya Devi farms a plot of riverbed in Siraha that, three years ago, was sand and stone. Today, vegetables grow between fruit and forest trees. When I asked what would make the biggest difference to her family, her answer was simple: “If I had enough water, I would grow every coloured vegetable on my farm.”Her ambition is not the problem. Access is.Last week, during a mission to Saptari and Siraha in Madhesh Province, I met women transforming degraded land into productive farms, adopting new methods to grow rice and vegetables with less water, and turning local resources such as bamboo into products for sale.Their experience points to a fundamental question for climate adaptation: are we investing enough in women farmers to enable them not simply to survive climate change, but to build successful, climate-resilient businesses?In this International Year of the Woman Farmer, and as we mark International Women Farmers’ Day, the answer matters.Climate change is changing farming. Women need the means to change with it.Madhesh contains more than a quarter of Nepal’s rice land, and farming has long depended on predictable monsoon rains. That predictability is disappearing. In July 2025, the provincial government declared Madhesh drought-hit. By the end of that month, only about half of the province’s rice land had been transplanted, compared with 92 per cent a year earlier. Siraha was among the worst affected.For women farmers, adapting to these conditions requires more than working harder. It requires knowledge, technology and investment.Women need to know which crops and varieties are better suited to changing conditions, how to conserve soil moisture, manage increasingly scarce water and adjust planting practices. But knowledge alone is not enough. They also need access to irrigation, appropriate machinery, quality inputs and other technologies that allow them to put that knowledge into practice.When women have access to these resources, we already see what becomes possible.In Laxmipur Patari, I saw women growing paddy using the System of Rice Intensification, which requires less water, and using mulch in vegetable plots to retain soil moisture. Instead of purchasing machinery individually, farmers can hire it through a community service centre.Across five municipalities in Siraha and Saptari where local governments and the UN support rural women’s economic empowerment, 88 per cent of women in the programme have adopted climate-smart practices. Average farm income has increased by 63 per cent, vegetable yields have more than quadrupled, and women’s groups have sold NPR 21.2 million worth of produce to institutional buyers, including the government’s school meals programme.These figures tell an important story: investing in women farmers is not simply social support. It is an investment in productivity, climate resilience and local economies. The ambition must be bigger than subsistenceBut we should go further.The objective cannot be to keep women as subsistence farmers, only with slightly better tools. It must be to enable women to move from subsistence farming to running viable agricultural SMEs.That requires us to see a woman farmer not only as a producer, but as an entrepreneur.She needs agricultural knowledge to understand how climate change is affecting her farm and what she can do differently. She needs equipment and water infrastructure to put those practices into effect. But she also needs the capabilities to run a business: access to land and finance, financial literacy, business planning, storage and processing, market information and reliable connections to buyers.Today, those pieces do not always come together.Across the five municipalities, fewer than one in three women have access to labour-saving machinery. Only about a third use financial services. Banks often require land as collateral, while few women own land in their own names. Some women receive training in new agricultural practices but cannot afford the equipment needed to use them independently.This is the gap we need to close.A woman who learns a climate-resilient farming technique but cannot finance irrigation, machinery or inputs cannot fully adapt. A woman who increases her harvest but has nowhere to store, process or sell it cannot turn increased production into a sustainable enterprise.Invest in the whole pathwayIf we want women farmers to become drivers of climate resilience and rural economic growth, investment must connect the entire pathway: knowledge, technology, finance and markets. Governments and private sector need to expand agricultural extension and practical training so women can understand and adopt climate-resilient farming techniques. That must be matched with access to water-efficient irrigation, appropriate machinery, improved inputs and technologies that reduce labour while increasing productivity.Financial institutions also need mechanisms that allow women without land titles to invest in their farms and businesses. Group lending, credit guarantees and savings histories can provide alternatives to traditional collateral.And investment cannot stop at the farm gate. Women need storage, processing, business development and direct relationships with public and private buyers so that they can capture more of the value created by what they grow.Municipalities in Madhesh are already demonstrating what local investment can achieve. Across the five municipalities, local governments have committed NPR 5.61 million of their own resources to women-focused agriculture, enterprise and social protection alongside the Joint Programme on Rural Women’s Economic Empowerment run by FAO, IFAD, UN Women and WFP.That investment should be the beginning, not the end.Women farmers are an investment in Nepal’s climate futureClimate change is forcing agriculture to transform. Women must have the resources to lead that transformation.The choice is not between protecting traditional farming and abandoning it. It is about helping women transform farming into a modern, climate-resilient business that can generate income, create jobs and withstand a changing climate.That means moving beyond short-term projects and demonstration plots. It means giving women farmers sustained access to the knowledge, technology, equipment, finance and markets required to make their own investment decisions and grow their enterprises.Mantodiya Devi already knows what she wants to grow.Our task should not be to preserve her as a subsistence farmer. It should be to make sure that water, technology, knowledge and finance do not stand between her and the agricultural business she has the ambition to build.