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Bringing millets back to the plate in India

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Bringing millets back to the plate in India

Capacity, Awareness & Policy Value Chain Development Minor millets South Asia IFAD-EU NUS

Minor millets, such as kodo (Paspalum scrobiculatum) and kutki millet (Panicum sumatrense), are target crops that the Neglected and Underutilized Species (NUS) community of Bioversity International is working to reintroduce in Indian diets. These ancient crops have high levels of nutrients, they are drought tolerant, climate resilient, ecologically friendly and have a high number of local varieties. They are good for health, the environment and for the farmers. So how can the consumption of millets in India be enhanced to leverage these benefits? This was the underlying question driving the debate at two important events held last April in India.

The first event was an international Dialogue on Millets, Monsoon and Market organized by the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) in Chennai on 15-17 April, with support from a number of organisations including Bioversity International. People gathered from various scientific disciplines and stakeholder groups involved in the value chain of millets including researchers, NGOs and grassroots organisations, policymakers, agronomists, nutritionists, businesses representatives and, most importantly, farmers. Over the three days of the meeting, all participants offered very interesting perspectives and direct experiences related to the conservation, cultivation, production, marketing, nutrition, health, consumption and issues for developing an enabling environment for their sustainable use enhancement.

Listening to the interventions, it soon became clear that numerous initiatives for the promotion of these crops are on the rise across the country and that more and more people are now realizing their health and economic potentials. Last November, the Government of India declared 2018 as the national year of millets and in April, further steps were taken to include millets into the public distribution system (PDS), a move expected to result into wider production and greater supply of millets to the Indian population at a price affordable to the poor. Several private firms attending the meeting presented their strategies for expanding their businesses on millets as healthy foods for enriching breakfast and other meals. Important developments in processing technologies of millet grains were also presented for both industrial and cottage scale productions. Various development agencies also shared their progress in millet promotion which is having a positive impact on income generation among rural producers and women’s Self Help Groups.

A critical mass of millets initiatives at all levels, seems to have emerged finally over the last few years, which is fundamental for making these crops graduate from their NUS status, or to be selected rather than neglected, as one participant put it during the conference.

The second meeting took place in Mandla, Madhya Pradesh on the 20th April, during which local stakeholders dug deeper down into an analysis of the kodo-kutki value chain in Mandla and Dindori districts. The workshop was organised by Bioversity International in collaboration with Action for Social Advancement (ASA) and the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF). Dr. Oliver King (MSSRF) presented the results of a detailed value chain assessment for millets in the project area and building from the results, stakeholders explored in participatory and open debate the challenges, needs and opportunities for upgrading.  

In attendance at the meeting were representatives of the three Farmer Producer Companies (FPCs) which have been strengthened by the IFAD EU Project for millet marketing as a means for economic empowerment. The FPCs are owned and operated by local Gond farmers and women in particular form the majority of the shareholders and board of directors for the companies. These cooperatives, have had insofar an important impact to increase the market power of farmers in the value chain and enhance the supply and availability of high quality seed of higher yielding and well adapted millet varieties.

At both events, actors across the various sectors largely agreed on the challenges that millets face today in India as well as the strategies of how to overcome these barriers. Despite availability of new technological solutions for threshing millets, there is still a lot of drudgery connected to the removal of their hard seed coats, a process called ‘de-hulling’. Furthermore, millets are often grown on slopes, which limits the use of agricultural machines. Again, another limitation is also represented by the short shelf-life of its processed grains, which makes it risky for retailers to buy a decent stock that would allow a regular availability of produce to customers. The rancidity of millets was identified as a key challenge in producing flour mixtures with wheat, which we learnt can be actually easily overcome by breeding.  Moreover, from a mainstreaming perspective, although the amendment on the PDS is a great step forward, very few states have started to implement that policy (e.g. Karnataka), leaving majority of millet farmers awaiting for favourable conditions to support the cultivation of these crops.  The recent policy change should help in overcoming this bottleneck.

A key message reiterated during both meetings was that the economic benefits that are on the rise thanks to the popularization of millets must be shared with farmers! But apart for that, it is also important that farmers’ households also gain healthy benefits from the direct consumption of millets and to that regard the project is set to introduce simple de-hulling machines to eliminate processing drudgery at community level.

Though minor millets, or better said ‘nutri-cereals’, were the protagonists in both meetings, an important outcome of the debates was that their promotion should not be carried out in isolation from their production systems. In other words, millets are part of a complex system that should be also safeguarded and along with that the many other nutritious species (pulses, vegetables, oil-seed crops) which help sustaining diversity-rich balanced diets.

Collaboration and sharing across disciplines and various professions involved in R&D on millets is paramount for their effective use enhancement. To that regard, Bioversity International scientist Stefano Padulosi, recommended that a platform be established in India to facilitate lessons sharing and synergy building on a regular basis (see article).

Proceedings of both meetings are being developed and will be made available on this website.

This meetings were organised as a part of the project 'Linking agrobiodiversity value chains, climate adaptation and nutrition: Empowering the poor to manage risk' supported by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the European Commission, and the CGIAR Research Programs on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) and Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH).

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