Centre to introduce 'pro-women initiatives' in agriculture
New Delhi, Oct 22 : To empower women working in the agricultural sector, the Centre is planning to come up with "pro-women initiatives" by earmarking funds for them under various programmes and development interventions.
"Women's contribution to the development of agriculture has increased manifold. Women play a decisive role in ensuring Food Security and preserving local agro-biodiversity," Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Kailash Choudhary said at a webinar organised by the Ministry on "Women in agri-start-ups: Creating Value with Supply Chain Management" in the series of events for celebrating Mahila Kisan Diwas 2021 on Friday.
The agriculture sector employs 80 per cent of all economically active women, and they comprise 33 per cent of the agricultural labour force and 48 per cent of self-employed farmers.
Noting it is imperative to adopt gender-specific interventions, an official statement said: "The Government has tried to push the agenda of 'Gender Mainstreaming in Agriculture' by way of earmarking funds for women under various schemes/programmes and development interventions; introducing 'pro-women initiatives' to help women derive the benefits of all beneficiary-oriented components of different programmes."
With women predominant at all levels of production - pre-harvest, post-harvest processing, packaging, marketing - of the agricultural value chain, to increase productivity in agriculture, it is imperative to adopt gender-specific interventions, it said.
The government is also planning to introduce 'pro-women initiatives' to help women derive the benefits of all beneficiary-oriented components of different programmes. The focus is on the formation of women Self Help Groups (SHGs), Women Federations and Women Farmer Producer Organisations; capacity building interventions; linking them to microcredit; enhancing their access to information and ensuring their representation in decision making bodies at various levels, the statement added.
