CSISA and STRASA highlight the crucial role played by women in food production

CSISA and STRASA projects organized a two-day action workshop on empowering women in agriculture through systematic inclusion in farming value chains on 17 and 18 December 2013 at Baripada, Mayurbhanj, Odisha in India.  The workshop aimed at developing a platform at the grass root level to create an effective and working network to reach large number of women farmers.

The objective of the workshop was to build partnerships that may link the technology options of CSISA and STRASA with programs implemented by both public institutions and civil society organizations, particularly those who work with women, in the district of Mayurbhanj.

Mayurbhanj was selected as the first district for this initiative because it has a large population of small and marginal farmers belonging to various vulnerable tribes where women are solely responsible for farming due to migration of men to other places for work.  The target of the initiative is to reach 8000 -10,000 women within the district with improved crop management and stress tolerant rice seeds within the next two years.
Representatives of Department of Agriculture, Government of Odisha, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, Krishi Vigyan Kendra, and Odisha Tribal Empowerment and Livelihood Programmes  along with seven local Non-Government organizations working on the issue of women empowerment and agriculture participated in the workshop.

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