As part of Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav, to commemorate the 75th year of Independence of India a programme on “Nutrition Smart Village” will be initiated to strengthen the Poshan Abhiyan. This new initiative aims to reach out to 75 villages across India through the network of All India Coordinated Research Project on Women in Agriculture (AICRP-WIA) which is in operation at 13 centres in 12 States of India besides the coordinating institute located at Bhubaneswar said Union Agriculture Minister Shri Narendra Singh Tomar while addressing an event organized by Indian Council of Agriculture Research today in New Delhi.

The initiative has been undertaken in line with the Prime Minister's call to all the academicians, agricultural scientists and all the institutions to adopt and transform 75 villages. Under the initiative, A total of 75 villages will be adopted by AICRP centres and ICAR-CIWA, for which the AICRP centres will adopt 5 villages each with the remaining to be adopted by ICAR-CIWA with an aim to develop 75 Nutri-Smart villages.

The objectives of the initiative are promoting nutritional awareness, education and behavioural change in rural areas involving farm women and school children, harnessing traditional knowledge through the local recipe to overcome malnutrition and implementing nutrition-sensitive agriculture through homestead agriculture and Nutri-garden.

To achieve the goal of Malnutrition free villages, intensive awareness campaigns and field activities will be undertaken for focusing on the concept of Nutri-village / Nutri-food / Nutri-diet/ Nutri-thali etc. for strengthening the Poshan Abhiyan. Awareness among the women farmers will also be created about their legal rights in all walks of life. The products/tools/technologies developed by AICRP centres will be evaluated through multi-location trials.

During the event, Shri Narendra Singh Tomar released 3 publications. The publications are ‘Technology profile of food products’, ‘Work participation and women in agriculture in India’ and ‘Gender Sensitive Agri-Horti Cropping System Model for addressing livelihood nutrition and entrepreneurship’.

Union Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Shri Kailash Choudhary and Ms. Shobha Karandlaje, Secretary, Agriculture, Shri Sanjay Agarwal, Secretary, DARE, Dr. Trilochan Mohapatra also addressed the event.

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APS/JK/IA