Vol. 12, Issue 6 (2023)

Author(s):
Ananta Sarkar, Sabita Mishra, JC Jeeva, Jyoti Nayak, Monalisha Patra and AK Panda

Abstract:
The most important economic sector in India is agriculture and this is the largest sector to provide employment to rural women. Agriculture persists as the central component of Odisha's economy and source of sustenance of rural people. Most commonly cultivated crops in the state are rice, pulses, oil seeds, jute, sugarcane, coconut and turmeric and one-tenth of the rice production in India is contributed by the state. Though women play a major role as farmers and producers, however their access to resources and opportunities to enable them to move from subsistence agriculture to higher value chains is much lower than men. One of the major shortcomings of the agricultural sector is to be found in the production, processing and marketing of agricultural products. Women farmers and entrepreneurs face a number of disadvantages as compared to men, including lower mobility, less access to training, market information, agricultural credit, crop loans and productive resources ultimately, they find it hard to maintain a profitable market niche. The challenge is to assure that women retain control over their production, processing, and marketing through producing a Women Farmers' Producer Company. The key objective of this paper is to identify the constraints and strengthen the Producer Groups for leadership, group management, value chain in post harvest, quality management and collective marketing in order to form a Producer Company for increasing production and collective marketing of aromatic and organic rice. The conceptual framework on which this paper is anchored is the role of rural women in aromatic rice production and management practices, capacity building through training, enhancing the decision making capacity of those rural women and to form a Producer Group for marketing of aromatic rice.