Tasks for India’s millet revolution

Despite the tremendous benefits associated with millet, there are serious constraints to increased millet cultivation and consumption in the country.

• 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.
• Two groups of millets are grown in India.
  • Major millets include sorghum, pearl millet and finger millet
  • Minor millets include foxtail, little millet, kodo, proso, and barnyard millet
• Benefits: Millets have
  • special nutritive properties: they are high in protein, dietary fibre, micronutrients and antioxidants
  • special agronomic characteristics: drought-resistant and suitable for semi-arid regions

What are the real problems?

• The decline in the area under millet cultivation
• Low productivity of millet
• Changing food habits

Recent Government Interventions

• The Government of India and State governments, notably Karnataka and Odisha, have initiated Millet Missions.
  • Odisha already has a dedicated millets mission that undertook procurement of 32,302 tonnes worth Rs 109.08 crore, mainly of ragi, in 2021-22.
• Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and Haryana might want to do the same in bajra, just as Maharashtra may for jowar, Karnataka for ragi, and Madhya Pradesh for Kodo/ kutki.