MILLET CULTIVATION - GEOGRAPHY
News: Centre for promoting millet globally; Tomar, Jaishankar meet ambassadors
What's in the news?
● In one of the pre-launch celebration programmes of the International Year of Millets-2023, the Ministry of Agriculture reached out to representatives of various countries in India to promote millets internationally.
● Both External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar addressed the event and urged for global focus on millets for its nutritional and health benefits.
Key takeaways:
● The Agriculture Ministry has been holding such programmes to create awareness and a sense of public participation about millets.
● Mr. Tomar said the International Year of Millets-2023 would provide an opportunity to globally promote millets as nutritious cereals and added that his Ministry was working in mission mode to increase its production and consumption.
● The time has come for the Public Distribution System to shift the focus of distribution programmes from basic calories to provide a more diverse food basket that includes millets to improve the nutritional status of pre-school children and women of reproductive age.
● Considering the nutritional value of millets, Mr. Tomar said the Centre had notified it as a nutritious cereal in April 2018 and had also been included under the Poshan Mission campaign.
● Government is providing support to start-up entrepreneurs for recipes and value-added products to promote consumption of millet.
● He said the NITI Aayog and the World Food Programme intended to identify and solve the challenges in millet production in a systematic and effective manner.
○ The partnership will focus on mainstreaming millets and support India in taking the lead globally in knowledge exchange using the opportunities in the form of the International Year of Millets.
● Mr. Jaishankar said millets had increasing relevance in the world today in the backdrop of COVID 19, climate change and conflicts.
● Millets were important for food security as well as international relations. He said one of the biggest concerns which had arisen from the Ukraine conflict was the inability of two major food producers.
Millets:
● Millets are cereal crops with high nutritive value and categorized as small-seeded grasses.
● The key varieties of millets include Sorghum, Pearl Millet, Ragi, Small Millet, Foxtail Millet, Barnyard Millet, Kodo Millet and others.
● Major producers include Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Haryana.
● High in dietary fiber, nutri-cereals are a powerhouse of nutrients including iron, folate, calcium, zinc, magnesium, phosphorus, copper, vitamins and antioxidants.
Significance of Millet Cultivation:
1. Low input cost:
● Cereals are good for the soil, have shorter cultivation cycles and require less cost-intensive cultivation.
2. Climate resilience:
● These unique features make millets suited for and resilient to India’s varied agro-climatic conditions.
● They can withstand high temperatures, floods, and droughts because they are hardy crops.
3. Drought tolerance:
● Cereals are not water or input-intensive, making them a sustainable strategy for addressing climate change and building resilient agri-food systems.
● They require less water. It is about one-third of rice, wheat and sugarcane.
4. Social benefits:
● Millets possess immense potential in the battle against poverty and provide food, nutrition, fodder and livelihood security. In rainfed farming areas, millet cultivation provides livelihood to 50% of tribal and rural population.
5. Agri-growth:
● India is the largest global producer with a 41% market share. A compound annual growth rate of 4.5% is projected for the global millet market in the coming decade.
6. Restoration of ecosystems and sustainability:
● Land degradation has been a major problem in India. Drought-tolerant crops (like millets) with low dependence on chemical inputs would put far less pressure on ecosystems.
7. Biofuel and climate resilience:
● Millets also offer a significant cost advantage over maize as a feedstock for bio-ethanol production.
● They have higher photosynthetic efficiency. Their potential yield is unaffected by higher carbon dioxide levels.
8. Addressing SDGs:
● Millet farming has led to women’s empowerment. The Odisha Millet Mission saw 7.2 million women emerge as ‘agri-preneurs’.
9. Nutritional benefits:
● They are a rich source of macronutrients and micronutrients like calcium, protein and iron.
● They have a low glycemic index that prevents type 2 diabetes. They can help to prevent cardiovascular diseases, lower blood pressure.
10. Increased income:
● Boosting millet cultivation will empower the average farmer and achieve the objectives of enhancing incomes and improving crop diversification.
Challenges in Millet Cultivation:
1. Effects of Green Revolution:
● The Green Revolution succeeded in making India food sufficient, however, it also led to water-logging, soil erosion, groundwater depletion and the unsustainability of agriculture.
2. Deficit mind-set:
● Current policies are still based on the “deficit” mind-set of the 1960s.
3. Biased policies:
● The procurement, subsidies and water policies are biased towards rice and wheat.
4. Skewed cropping pattern:
● Three crops (rice, wheat and sugarcane) corner 75 to 80 percent of irrigated water.
5. Lack of diversification:
● Diversification of cropping patterns towards cereals, pulses, oilseeds, horticulture is needed for more equal distribution of water, sustainable and climate-resilient agriculture.
6. Lack of marketing facilities:
● In some village areas farmers are not getting the do not get the market to sell their crops.
● To sell crops in bulk they have to locate certain small shops since there is no profitable market or demand nearby. This also makes the distribution of crops difficult.
7. Low crop productivity and high labor intensity:
● Cultivating millets requires strong manual labor and is difficult for a single person to do. Added to this is the fact that certain millets turn out to be low in productivity.
8. Lack of investment in millet product development and promotion/ advertisements.
9. Improper suitable processing units close to millet fields:
● It causes local producers to take their produce to distant places. For example, raw grains of Kodo millets produced in Tamil Nadu, need to be transported to Maharashtra for processing.
Government Initiatives:
1. APEDA:
● The APEDA is also working in collaboration with the Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare to increase cultivation area, production and productivity of millets, including bajra, jowar and ragi.
2. Millets as Nutri-cereals:
● In view of the nutritional value of the millets, the Government has notified millets as nutri-cereals in April, 2018.
● The millets are a rich source of protein, fibre, minerals, iron, calcium and have a low glycaemic index.
3. International Year of Millets:
● In March, 2021, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) declared 2023 as the International Year of Millets.
4. Intensive Millets Promotion (INSIMP):
● Launched in 2012 as a part of the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana(RKVY), to advance equipment and technology related to millet harvest and increasing productivity of inefficient areas.
5. Rainfed Area Development Programme:
● Developing and identifying new areas receiving adequate rainfall for millet farming as a part of the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana(RKVY).
6. MSP of Nutri-cereals:
● The government hiked the MSP of Nutri-cereals, which came as a big price incentive for farmers.
● As we compare the data on MSPs for food crops from 2014-15 against 2020, we see that the MSP for ragi has jumped a whopping 113 per cent, followed by bajra and jowar at 72 percent and 71 percent respectively.
7. National Food Security Mission:
● Millets are being promoted under the National Food Security Mission (NFSM) to help provide good nutrition to those who are unable to afford it.
● To provide a steady market for the produce, the government included millets in the public distribution system.
8. “Millet in Minutes” products:
● Recently APEDA launched a variety of “Millet in Minutes” products under the category of Ready-to-Eat (RTE) such as Upma, Pongal, Khichadi, Noodles, Biryani, etc,
● This is a breakthrough in the food sector as it’s the first RTE millet product in the market to cater fast-paced worlds at their convenience in a healthy way.
9. Nutri-Gardens and Behaviour Change Campaign:
● The Ministry of Women and Child Development has been working at the intersection of agriculture and nutrition by setting up nutri-gardens, promoting research on the inter-linkages between crop diversity and dietary diversity and running a behaviour change campaign to generate consumer demand for nutri-cereals.
WAY FORWARD:
1. Nutrition Ambassadors and Entrepreneurs:
● Grassroots workers like the Anganwadi and ASHA workers must be further involved as nutrition ambassadors and entrepreneurs in the millet revolution.
● Promote participatory millets farming, drawing best practices from Odisha, Chhattisgarh, and Karnataka.
● Agri-tech farms can be roped in to disseminate recommended practices to micro-entrepreneurs.
2. Creation of an attractive value chain:
● Collaborations with schemes like National Rural Livelihoods Mission and focus on the creation of an attractive value chain are needed.
● Techniques in packaging and processing must precede efforts to target metropolitan cities and urban centers to create more demand.
● Promotion of processed millet products such as ragi cookies, bajra biscuits, jowar namkeen.
3. India Millets Mission:
● An inclusive rural economy can be built around millets by promoting entrepreneurial ventures through the India Millets Mission. Similarly, initiatives around appropriate pricing must be undertaken.
● APEDA can incentivize commercial cultivation of millets such as ‘one district one product’ or cluster farming for trade promotion.
4. Training and capacity-building initiatives:
● The need of the hour is dedicated programmes with proper training and capacity-building initiatives that urge farmers to move away from loss-making crops toward diversification via millets.
● Agricultural Technology Application Research Institutes and Krishi Vigyan Kendras can invest in capacity building of smallholder farmers through field demonstration.
5. ‘Vocal for Local’ campaign:
● There is an imported penetration of seeds, whole grains and cereals not native to the Indian geography or cuisine.
● Quinoa is a prominent example that has seen increasing domination in urban diets.
● Hence, under the ‘Vocal for Local’ campaign, indigenous crops must be lent more support and focus.
● Re-introduction of cultural associations and festivals that help promote the growth of millets. E.g., North-East Network in Nagaland organized in 2020, Mandukiya in Vishakhapatnam celebrated annually in June/July.
6. Empower women farmers:
● Empower women farmers and self-help groups (SHG), by equipping them with advanced packaging techniques, agro-marketing, financial literacy and other entrepreneurial skills.
7. Introducing millet cultivation in areas where farmer's distress is visible:
● One way to double farm incomes and encourage farm diversification is to make millet production attractive by introducing millet cultivation in areas where farmers’ distress is visible.
● For instance, the cotton dependency of Vidarbha's farmers and economy is well-known, especially in the arid zones. The region in Maharashtra is also known as the farmer suicide capital.
● Perhaps one of the most important solutions is to encourage cotton farmers to diversify into millet production after careful feasibility studies and feedback from the farmers themselves.
India should aim for a food systems transformation, which can be inclusive and sustainable, ensure growing farm incomes and nutrition security. As the government sets to achieve its agenda of a malnutrition-free India and doubling of farmer's incomes, the promotion of the production and consumption of nutri-cereals seems to be a policy shift in the right direction.