Empowerment of women and more specifically farm women is the buzz word of today because women are the most important productive force in agriculture. In India 70 per cent of the population is rural and 60 per cent of households are engaged in agriculture. Women are the most important productive force in agriculture. Chilli is an important cash crop of Karnataka and more specifically Dharwad district and can boast of the world famous Byadagi variety of chillies. The present investigation was undertaken to study the socio- personal characteristics and knowledge level of women involved in chilli cultivation. This study was conducted in Kundgol taluk of Dharwad district in Karnataka as it is the highest chilli growing area. Five villages were selected randomly and from each village 30 farm women were selected making a sample of 150. Personal interview method was used to collect the data and suitable statistical tools were used for analyzing the data. The study revealed that, majority of the respondents  were within the age group of 36-50 yrs, belonged to forward caste and had education upto primary level. More than fifty per cent of the farm women belonged to joint and medium sized families. All respondents were from farming families mainly belonging to marginal and small land holdings. About 60 per cent of the respondents had an annual family income upto ` 1,32,000. The study showed that the overall empowerment index of women involved in chilli cultivation was 56.44. The highest was for income (76%) i.e. control over use of income followed by leadership (56%) i.e. membership in socio-economic groups and comfort in speaking in public, production (48.80%) i.e. input in productive decision/autonomy in production and resource (45%) i.e. ownership of assets and access to services. The study also revealed that empowerment had positive and significant relationship with education and contact with extension agency