NEW DELHI, 10 March 2021: Indian agriculture & farmers welfare minister, Narendra Singh Tomar said in the parliament today that government has already established an institute, ICAR-Central Institute for Women in Agriculture at Bhuvneshwar, Odisha under the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, New Delhi to address the problems and issues of the women in agriculture.

The institute undertakes research on Women in Agriculture and to identify gender issues in agriculture and suggest interventions to address the same.

A total 704 number of capacity building programmes for farm women were conducted by ICAR-CIWA and All India Coordinated Research Project (AICRP) on Home Science covering 31,626 farm women during 2015-20.

The Government has set up 722 Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs) in the country with mandate of technology assessment and demonstration for its application and capacity development. As part of their activities, the KVKs impart training to farmers including women farmers on various aspects of agriculture and allied sectors.

The KVKs also organize women farmer specific training programmes on various topics like Household food security by kitchen gardening and nutrition gardening; Design and development of low/minimum cost diet; Designing and development for high nutrient efficiency diet; Minimization of nutrient loss in processing; Processing and cooking; Gender mainstreaming through SHGs; Storage loss minimization techniques; Value addition; Women empowerment; Location specific drudgery reduction technologies; Rural Crafts; and Women and child care.

During last year, 5358 women specific trainings were organised by the KVKs with the participation of 1.23 lakh women farmers. Besides, 5.50 lakh women farmers also participated in other 57757 training programmes along with male farmers, the minister added.

Under Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NRLM) of Ministry of Rural Development, around 58,295 Krishi Sakhi for Agriculture activities were trained by 735 State Level Resource Persons.

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