75 Nutrition Smart Villages to Reinforce India’s Campaign Against Malnutrition

As part of Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav, to commemorate the 75th year of Independence of India a program 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 centers in 12 States of India besides the coordinating institute located at Bhubaneswar said Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar while addressing an event organized by Indian Council of Agriculture Research today in New Delhi.

75 Villages Adopted by AICRP Centres & ICAR-CIWA

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 centers and ICAR-CIWA, for which the AICRP centers 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 behavioral change in rural areas involving farm women & 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 centers will be evaluated through multi-location trials.

Narendra Singh Tomar Released 3 Publications

During the event, 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 Kailash Choudhary and Ms. Shobha Karandlaje, Secretary, Agriculture, Sanjay Agarwal, Secretary, DARE, Dr. Trilochan Mohapatra also addressed the event.

Source: PIB