Women have been contributing enormously to agricultural growth and development through their involvement in crop production, horticulture, animal husbandry, fisheries, natural resource management etc. Still their contribution is not recognized and lagging behind the men. Approach to research, extension and development activities are not gender sensitive and there is a general reluctance on part of a large section of researchers, extension and developmental workers to include gender component in their programmes. Hence, it is pertinent to sensitize different stakeholders involve in agriculture for strengthening women perspective in agriculture. In this connection, ICAR-CIWA organized a 3 days training programme on "Gender sensitisation for strengthening women perspective in agriculture" during 28-30 January, 2016 for NGO workers in Odisha.

Twenty five tribal farm families participated in the programme. The programme was coordinated by the project team, Dr. Naresh Babu, Dr. J. C. Jeeva, Smt. Tapaswini Sahoo and Shri. Sanjay Kr. Behera.

A total of 33 participants from 21 NGOs working in 9 districts of Odisha were participated in the training programme. The sessions including theory & practical were conducted in participatory mode through group exercises. The participants were sensitized about gender concepts, gender stereotypes, women's issues in agriculture, women friendly farm tools and implements, special provisions for women under different agricultural schemes/missions and importance of gender disaggregated data & gender analysis tools. Dr. S. K. Srivastava Director, ICAR-CIWA briefed the importance and significance of the training and also highlighted the role of ICAR-CIWA in gender mainstreaming and empowerment of women in agriculture. The training programme was organized by Dr. Sabita Mishra, Training Coordinator, Dr. Ananta Sarkar, Ms. Gayatri Moharana, Dr. Shivaji Argade, Training Co-coordinators and Technical Assistance by Mr. B.C. Behera & Er. Subrat Ku. Das.