Channayya Yemmetti Hiremath, CEO of Karnataka-based Gaurishankar Food Industries, is one of the 60 firms/exporters who participated in the first ever international buyer-seller meet on millets in New Delhi and has been looking forward to meeting importers abroad as APEDA plans to organise more such meets. There are some companies who have secured export orders for raw millets of a few thousand tonnes as demand for value added products has been increasing, particularly from Indian diaspora.

“We got serious enquiries from the US, Indonesia and Malaysia and are hopeful of some business deals next year,” said Hiremath. Gaurishankar’s products such as ready-to-cook millet-based products as well as jowar/bajra ready-to-eat roti have received the attention of many of the 36 buyers from 18 countries, who had come for the buyer-seller meet held on December 5 on the sidelines of Millets-Smart Nutritive Food Conclave.

Stress on research

Inaugurating the conclave, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal exhorted Indian exporters to look at newer markets for millets to push the country’s exports. The The minister lauded Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) for the remarkable work it had done so far and expressed confidence that its efforts would promote Indian millets all over the world.

Stressing on the need for more research and focus on standards for the sector, Goyal said, “We must look for newer markets and destinations. Research is required to see newer varieties.” He also urged the stakeholders to focus on boosting productivity of millets, which can help reduce carbon emission. “Let’s become the global capital of millets,” he said.

Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal said there is a huge scope to boost millet exports from India and the government has set a target of $ 100 million in 2-3 years from the current $15 million. He said APEDA would be organising several such buyer-seller meets in India and abroad to promote millets.

$100 million target

As reported by businessline earlier, APEDA will take an Indian delegation of exporters, start-ups and farmer producer organisations (FPOs) to 17 major international events for the promotion of millets and its value-added products during 2023, which has been declared by the United Nations as International Year of Millets (IYOM).

APEDA has set a target to raise export of millets and their value-added products to $100 million by 2023-24 from $64.28 million in 2021-22. The export of such products was $59.75 million in 2020-21, in which share of value added products was negligible. Though India is the top producer of millets, the export share is less than 15 per cent in global trade of $470 million in 2021.

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