ICAR-CIWA organized National Webinar on “Alleviating Malnutrition and Promoting Gender Equity through Rural Poultry Production” in India

The ICAR-Central Institute for Women in Agriculture, Bhubaneswar, Odisha organized a National Webinar on “Alleviating Malnutrition and Promoting Gender Equity through Rural Poultry Production in India” on 3 February 2021. The webinar was organized with the objectives to orient participants about current scenario of rural poultry sector and its contribution to livelihood improvement of farm women and to develop women entrepreneurship in rural poultry sector for enhancing income and household nutrition of farm families. Dr. P.S. Pandey, ADG (EP&HS), ICAR graced the occasion as the chief guest. In his inaugural address, he highlighted the importance of the Webinar’s topic to the current scenario in the country. He emphasized the importance of rural poultry to enhance income and promote women empowerment and advised that backyard poultry should be an integral component of SCSP and TSP programme of ICAR. He also suggested that the demand and supply gap for promoting backyard poultry in the country may also be worked out. In his address, Dr. S.K. Srivastava, Director, ICAR-CIWA, Bhubaneswar, Odisha highlighted that Poultry represents an important system to feed the fast growing human population in developing countries like India and to provide income to poor small farmers, especially women. He stressed on the promotion and implementation of long term planning to make rural poultry production a sustainable way for food and nutrition security at both the household and community levels.

The eminent Resource Persons shared their views on various dimensions of rural poultry production covering current scenario of poultry production in the country, the role of poultry in nutrition security and women empowerment, livelihood improvement and enterprise development. Dr. Braja Bandhu Swain, Programme Coordinator, ILRI delivered a talk on how using poultry as a tool for nutrition security and gender equity. Dr. S. V. Rama Rao, from ICAR-DPR, Hyderabad presented the current scenario of malnutrition in India and the contribution of poultry sector for its alleviation. Dr. Mukund Kadam from Nagpur Veterinary College, Nagpur stressed on improving livelihood and promoting gender equity through rural poultry production. Dr. Satyanarayan Swain, Director, CPDO, Mumbai deliberated upon women entrepreneurship development through small scale poultry production. Finally, importance of duck farming for income and nutrition security of farm families was discussed by Dr. S.K. Mishra Principal Scientist, ICAR-DPR Regional Centre, Bhubaneswar.

More than 110 participants attended the webinar which included scientists, research scholars, faculties and students across the country. The webinar was coordinated by Dr A.K. Panda, Dr Anil Kumar, Dr. B. Sahoo and Mr. Neetish Kumar of ICAR-CIWA.