Bhubaneswar: As many as 10 villages of Odisha have been included under the Union Government’s “Nutrition Smart Village” program launched to strengthen the Poshan Abhiyan.
As part of Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav, to commemorate the 75th year of Independence of India, Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar launched the Nutrition Smart Village initiative to reach out to 75 villages across India through the network of All India Coordinated Research Project on Women in Agriculture (AICRP-WIA).
The AICRP-WIA is in operation at 13 Centers in 12 States including Odisha. The Indian Council of Agriculture Research—Central Institute for Women in Agriculture (ICAR-CIWA) located at Bhubaneswar is the coordinating institute for the programme.
Matiapada, Kunjar, Lokapal, Chitra & Sagada villages of Puri district; Majhihara of Khurda district; Sankilo, Tentalpur & Katarapad villages of Cuttack district; and Srivantapur of Jagatsinghpur district have been included under the program.
The selected villages to be made nutrition smart, through establishing nutri-gardens in homes, schools; awareness campaigns will be launched regarding malnutrition and methodologies to combat it; advocating local solutions for achieving nutrition.
While addressing at the event, Dr. B. Sahoo, Director-In-Charge of the Bhubaneswar Institute, conveyed importance of bio-fortified food, nutria-kitchen garden, agriculture for nutrition model, mixed cropping system, integrated farming system, different technologies for high yielding varieties, quality seeds etc.
Dr.Sahoo advised the women farmers about taking a balanced diet enriched with vitamins, minerals for child, adolescent girls, and pregnant women and gave some statistics on India’s position in different farm produce and the percentage of women who were anemic, underweight etc.
Dr. Jyoti Nayak, Nodal Officer and Principal Scientist emphasized on the adoption of improved eating and cooking practices for conservation of nutrients in the food. She also pointed out the effect that an unbalanced food intake causes on adolescent girls, pregnant women and lactating mothers. She later enlisted the proper nutrition requirement of different age groups.
A technical session was held for the benefit of the farm women. It covered various topics by the Scientist of ICAR-CIWA, like “Poshan Vatika : Strengthening Nutrition of Family”, “Role of Milk in Human health and Nutrition”, “Role of Pulses in combating malnutrition” etc.
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.
