ICAR - Central Institute for Women in Agriculture, Bhubaneswar organized National Training programme on “Capacity Building of Farming Women" for the representatives of state extension functionaries, NGOs and farmer's organisations of Uttar Pradesh from January 19-23, 2018. The programme was sponsored by State Institute for Management of Agriculture, Rehmankhera, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. The objective of the programme was to improve the professional competence, upgrade the knowledge and develop technical skills of progressive farmwomen, extension workers and stakeholders working for empowerment of women in agriculture of Uttar Pradesh. The programme created an opportunity for experience sharing and problem solving by interaction between experts and participants for identification of location specific researchable issues of farmwomen. Strategies were discussed for their capacity building by creating an enabling environment, knowledge improvement and field demonstrations.

The SIMA Training was attended by 13 participants nominated from Uttar Pradesh State Agriculture Department. The programme focused on capacity building of farmwomen to emerge as leaders for technology dissemination and grass root innovation. The training comprised 16 theory classes, 5 practicals, one field visit, 2 group exercises and one group presentation. The compendium of the training was completely prepared in Hindi and even the presentations were also delivered in Hindi. The course team consisted of Dr Laxmi Priya Sahoo and Smt Ankita sahu, as Course coordinators and Sri Manoranjan Prusty, Sri Sanjay Kumar Behera and Smt Tapaswini Sahoo as facilitators. In the valedictory session Dr Santosh Kumar Srivastava, Director, ICAR-CIWA emphasized that, knowledge on gender aspects, capacity building and women leadership development is essential for inclusive development of rural agriculture. He also highlighted the need for effective management of women’s capacity, locally available resources and women friendly agro based entrepreneurial activities which will lead to livelihood improvement of farm families. The course was found useful for both trainers and trainees.