6.87 lakh women farmers registered for benefits under Centre's FPO scheme

New Delhi, July 26: As part of the Centre's campaign to empower women in rural areas, 810 Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) have been registered with 100 per cent women members, while out of the overall registration of 19,82,835, farmers in FPOs, as many as 6,86,665 are women farmers, according to the information tabled in Parliament on Friday.

Members of FPOs are eligible for support for end-to-end services covering almost all aspects of cultivation from inputs, technical services to processing and marketing, in order to enhance their earnings. Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan stated in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha that a total of 8,780 FPOs have already been registered across the country as part of the Centre's scheme to create 10,000 such entities.

The minister stated that provisions have been made in the operational guidelines of the FPOs scheme to increase women's participation. The scheme has a clause to provide special focus to include small, marginal and women farmers women SHGs, SC/ST farmers and other economically weaker categories as members to make FPOs more effective and inclusive.

Besides, adequate representation has to be given to women on the Board of Directors and Governing Body as the case may be, he added.