How millet cultivation can tackle the challenges of food security issues

The year 2023 has been declared by the United Nations as the International Year of the Millet, following a proposal by India. The global agrifood systems face multiple challenges to produce food for the ever-growing global population.

In such a scenario, resilient cereals such as millets provide an affordable and nutritious option, and efforts need to be scaled up to promote their cultivation. Millets can play an important role and contribute to the collective efforts to empower smallholder farmers, achieve sustainable development, eliminate hunger, adapt to climate change, promote biodiversity, and transform agri-food systems.

Millets can truly tackle the food security issues worldwide, as they are nutritionally superior to wheat and rice, owing to their higher protein levels and a more balanced amino acid profile. They also contain various phytochemicals which exert therapeutic properties owing to their anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidative properties. Further, millet grains are rich sources of nutrients like carbohydrates, protein, dietary fiber, and good-quality fat; minerals like calcium, potassium, magnesium, iron, manganese, zinc, and B complex vitamins.

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Less water required

Added to this, millets require very little water for production and have a short growing period under dry, high-temperate conditions, making them a good fit for arid and semi-arid regions. Millets use 70 per cent less water than rice; grow in half the time as wheat; and need 40% less energy in processing. They are used for food and fodder. Therefore, they make strong economic sense in the mixed farming systems of India. In addition, millets sequestrate carbon, thereby adding to C02 abatement opportunities, contributing to improved agro-biodiversity through their rich varietal diversity, allowing for mutually beneficial intercropping with other vital crops.

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Millets were an integral part of the Indian food system, but due to the push given to food security through Green Revolution in the 1960s, the production and consumption of millets gradually diminished over time. Before the Green Revolution, millets made up around 40 per cent of all cultivated grains, which has dropped to around 20 per cent over the years. According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmer Welfare, till the 1965-70 time-frame, millets formed 20% of our foodgrain basket but are now down to 6 per cent. Between 2013-14 and 2021-22, the major millets such as bajra, jowar, and ragi combined production dropped by 7 per cent to 15.6 million tons.

However, recognising the enormous potential of millets, which also aligns with several UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Government of India (Gol) prioritised millets. In April 2018, millets were rebranded as “Nutri Cereals and UNGA declared 2023 as the International Year of Millets in March 2021. India pushed for recognizing the importance of millet and creating a domestic and global demand along with providing nutritious food to the community.

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Galvanising interest

PM Narendra Modi has also shared his vision to make International Year of Millet (IYM) 2023 a ‘People’s Movement’ alongside positioning India as the ‘Global Hub for Millets’. This has galvanized interest in millet among various stakeholders like farmers, the youth, and civil society and pushed governments and policymakers to prioritize the production and trade in these cereals.

The Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) through its Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana - National Rural Livelihood Mission (DAY-NRLM) has made significant efforts to increase the production of millets across India. The major interventions were, transferring improved technologies at the last mile for enhancing production, availing good quality seeds through convergence and promotion of seed banks, availing finance through Revolving Funds (RF) and Community Investment Funds (CIF) to take up millet production and post-harvest processing, promotion of value-added millet products to increase its market appeal and running camps and other activities to promote millet consumption in the local areas. All these efforts have resulted in increased production and consumption of millets in India.

(The author is Integrator, PRADAN)

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