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(GIST OF KURUKSHETRA) Women Farmers

[April-2022]

Women Farmers

Context:

The Mahila Kisan Sashaktikaran Pariyojana (MKSP) was launched with the primary objective to empower women in agriculture and allied sectors by making systematic investments to enhance their participation and productivity in agriculture-based livelihoods and building the capacity around sustainable harvesting, post-harvesting techniques for NIFPs and value chain development through promotion of producer collective.

Mahila Kisan Sashaktikaran Pariyojana (MKSP):

NRLM recognises that the poor have multiple livelihoods and one of the key components, as envisaged in the NRLM Framework, is enhancing and expanding the existing livelihoods of the poor. More than 70 percent of the rural poor are dependent on agriculture either as cultivators or as agricultural labour. Besides, livestock rearing is again a key livelihood of the poor. In forest fringe areas, non-timber forest produce (NTFP) is a major livelihood of the poor who mostly belong to tribal communities.
DAY-NRLM started promoting farm livelihoods intervention through MKSP. The MKSP was launched in the year 2010-11 with the primary objective to empower women in agriculture and allied sectors by making systematic investments to enhance their participation and productivity in agriculture-based livelihoods and building the capacity around sustainable harvesting, post-harvesting techniques for NTFPs and value chain development through promotion of producer collectives. It also aims at ensuring nutrition for poorest of the poor by securing and strengthening the primary livelihood basket of poor households.

The three broad focus programmatic areas of MKSP are

Sustainable Agriculture
NonTimber Forest Produce (NTFP) and
Value Chain Development.

Livestock interventions are integrated with both Sustainable Agriculture and NTFP projects.

Sustainable Agro-ecological Practices

The primary objective of the MKSP is to empower women by making systematic investments to enhance their participation and productivity, as also create sustainable livelihoods for rural women.

The key objectives of the sub-scheme are-

to enhance the productive participation of women in agriculture;
to create sustainable agricultural livelihood opportunities for women in agriculture;
to improve the skills and capabilities of women in agriculture to support farm and non farm-based activities;
to ensure food and nutrition security at the household and the community level;
to enable women to have better access to inputs and services of the government and other agencies; and
to enhance the managerial capacities of women in agriculture