Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman inaugurated India's first women-led agro-processing centre in Yadgir, Karnataka on June 4, 2026. The initiative aims to empower women farmers and enhance agricultural value chains through modern processing facilities. The centre will focus on processing millets, pulses, and traditional crops while providing employment to rural women. This aligns with government's women empowerment and food processing sector promotion goals under various central schemes including PM-FME.

The women-led agro-processing centre represents a convergence of multiple government priorities: women empowerment, agricultural value addition, and rural employment generation. Located in Yadgir, a predominantly agricultural district in northern Karnataka, this facility addresses the critical gap in post-harvest value addition that leads to farmer income losses. Women constitute nearly 43% of India's agricultural workforce but face limited access to processing infrastructure and market linkages. The centre will process traditional crops like millets and pulses, aligning with government's nutritional security goals and millet promotion campaigns. Under schemes like PM-FME (Pradhan Mantri Formalisation of Micro Food Processing Enterprises), such centres receive financial support for equipment, training, and market linkage. The initiative demonstrates how targeted infrastructure can create sustainable livelihoods while reducing post-harvest losses, which currently amount to 4-16% for different crops. This model can be replicated across other agriculturally intensive districts, potentially transforming rural women from mere farm laborers to agro-entrepreneurs with enhanced bargaining power in value chains.