A Capacity Building Programme was organized on post-harvest management and value addition of fruits and vegetables for women farmers on the occasion of celebrating 75 years of India Independence as Bharat ki Azadi ka Amrut Mahotsav by ICAR-CIWA, Bhubaneswar on 5 August, 2021 in Sankilo village of Nischintakoili block, Cuttack district, Odisha. The Capacity Building Programme was attended by about 70 participants including scientists of ICAR-CIWA, farm women, farmers, Personnel from Line Department and Media Personnel.

At the outset, Dr. Lipi Das welcomed all the participants and described about importance of processing and value addition for reduction of post harvest losses of fruits & vegetables due to market glut and stressed upon the preparation of different value added products from mango & pineapple under the project gender sensitive farming system model for developing entrepreneurship among farm women. She also conducted a Nutri-Quiz competition to evaluate the nutritional awareness level of the farm women for promoting gender sensitive nutritional security model.

Dr. Sachidananda Swain highlighted about scientific method of preparation of different value added products from fruits and Ready to Serve products so that farm women could get maximum financial benefits by using their available resources and linking those products to market. Dr. Biswanath Sahoo explained about utilization of food waste for animal feed and discussed about the necessity of giving proper vaccination and nutrient rich cattle feed for enhancing productivity of dairy animals.

The programme was followed by the demonstration of transplanting of high yielding rice variety CR DHAN-312 and high protein rice varieties viz., CR DHAN-311 (Mukul), CR DHAN-315 in SRI method of transplanting and distribution of women friendly farm tools and equipment viz., Rice-husk combustor, Hand Winnower (fan model), Pedal operated Thresher, Seed treatment drum, mandwa weeder, cono weeder etc. among farm women. The programme was thoroughly covered by the print media for wide publicity. At the end of the programme, vote of thanks was proposed.