New Delhi: Even as women agriculturalists form more than half of the total global population involved in farming it is actually the men folk who continue to receive better training leaving the other gender behind and poverty index screwed up, claimed a report released on Thursday.

The report Training for Rural Development: Agriculture and Enterprise Skills for Women by City & Guilds Centre for Skills Development said developing countries can tackle poverty provided women smallholders are facilitated with agricultural and enterprise training. The study focused on the kinds of training that would empower rural women and equip them to face challenges like low literacy levels, multiple domestic obligations and demonstrates the appropriate training that needs to be implemented.

The report found that if women farmers are trained at par with men, agricultural yields would be up by 20%. Based on inputs from successful projects in India and Ghana and knitting together existing literature on the challenges women face, the report proposed a more focused approach to training. It wanted that ‘projects effectively engage with women and their current challenges, use existing community structures, introduce new skills in manageable stages and work with local government structures to ensure long term change’.

World Bank’s Nalin Jena said, “In India, like many developing nations, agriculture is one of the keys to reducing poverty. This report brings out lessons demonstrating that training can make a difference to the livelihoods of rural women.”