Millet Revolution in Rural India

The growing recognition of millets as nutritious and sustainable food sources has sparked a renewed interest in their cultivation and consumption across India, particularly in rural areas.

Current Consumption Trends

• Despite perceptions of declining millet consumption due to the green revolution's focus on wheat and rice, rural consumers have maintained a strong connection to traditional grains.
• Rural areas are consuming millets on par with urban counterparts. Research indicates that states like Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Karnataka continue to incorporate millets into their diets, using them for food, fodder, and industrial applications.
• Rural vs. Urban Consumption: While overall millet consumption has decreased over the decades, rural consumption remains significantly higher than in urban settings. This enduring tradition highlights the need for companies and startups to recalibrate their strategies to better engage with rural markets.
• Government Initiatives and Support:
  • Public Distribution System (PDS)
  • Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman
  • Saksham Anganwadi
  • Poshan 2.0 

What is Millet?

• Millet is a collective term referring to a number of small-seeded annual grasses that are cultivated as grain crops, primarily on marginal lands in dry areas in temperate, subtropical, and tropical regions.
• Examples: jowar (sorghum), ragi (finger millet), Kodo (Kodo millet), kutki (little millet), kakun (foxtail millet), Sanwa (barnyard millet), cheena (proso millet), kuttu (buckwheat) and chaulai (amaranth).
• Positives of millets:

• Nutritionally superior traits: Millet’s score over rice and wheat in terms of minerals, vitamins, and dietary fibre content, as well as amino acid profile.
• For example, Bajra (pearl millet), has iron, zinc, and protein levels comparable to that of wheat, but it’s gluten-free and has more fibre.
• It can address the problem of “hidden hunger” arising from the consumption of energy-dense but micronutrients-deficient foods

• The rotis from bajra make one feel fuller for longer, as they take more time to digest and do not raise blood sugar levels too fast.

Advantages as a crop:

• Millets are hardy and drought-resistant crops.
• This has to do with their short duration (70-100 days, against 115-150 days for rice and wheat)
  • lower water requirement (350-500 mm versus 600-1,250 mm)
  • ability to grow even on poor soils and in hilly terrain

Where do millets lag?

• Eating Habits: For the poor, both in urban and rural areas, rice and wheat were once aspirational foods
• Dominance of traditional grains: Two-thirds of India’s population receives up to 5 kg of wheat or rice per person per month at Rs 2 and Rs 3/kg respectively.
  • The recent move to place two fine cereals free of cost from January 2023, further tilts the scales against millets.
• Cooking:Rolling Rotis is easier with wheat than millet flour.
• Low per-Hectare yields: The national average is roughly 1 tonne for jowar, 1.5 tonnes for bajra and 1.7 tonnes for ragi. Whereas it is 3.5 tonnes for wheat and 4 tonnes for paddy — are a disincentive.
• Presence of Infrastructure for traditional grains: With access to assured irrigation, they would tend to switch to rice, wheat, sugarcane, or cotton.
• Absence of government procurement at minimum support price (MSP): It makes farmers hesitant to grow even this high-yielding and naturally bio-fortified bajra, suitable for both post-monsoon Kharif and summer cultivation.