Healthy and Wise

Context:  As the government sets to achieve its agenda of a malnutrition-free India and doubling of farmers’ incomes, the promotion of the production and consumption of nutri-cereals is a policy shift in the right direction.

Facts about millets or “Nutri-cereals” in India:

• International Year of the Millets: Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has endorsed India’s call for declaring 2023 as the “International Year of Millets”. 

• Types of millet crops:

• Major millet crops: currently growing in India are Jowar (sorghum), Bajra (pearl millet) and Ragi (finger millet) 

• Small millets: are Kodo, Kutki, Chenna and Sanwa.

• Agro-climatic conditions required: Dry, low-fertile, mountainous, tribal and rain-fed areas.

• Major producers: Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Haryana

• Constituents Minerals: Iron, Folate, Calcium, Zinc, Magnesium, Phosphorous, Copper, Vitamins and Antioxidants.

• Benefits: 

• Healthy growth and development of children

• Reduce the risk of heart disease and diabetes in adults
• Resilient to India’s varied agro-climatic conditions; good for the soil, shorter cultivation cycles and requires less cost-intensive cultivation.

• A sustainable strategy for addressing climate change, since they are not water or input-intensive

• Change in the consumption pattern: E.g. Before the Green Revolution, Bajra constituted 46% of the crop production as opposed to 13% for rice in the Kharif season.

Reasons for the decline in consumption of millets

• Focus of the Green revolution was on food security and high-yielding varieties of wheat and rice: which led to a gradual decline in the production of millets.

• Cost incentives restricted to the staple grains like rice and wheat and neglected for the nutri-cereals.
• Increase in demand for ultra-processed food: Even the rural population started perceiving mill-processed rice and wheat as more aspirational; Millets were seen as “poor person’s food”.

Multi-pronged strategy adopted by the government for the promotion of millets

• Re-branding coarse cereals/millets as nutri-cereals has resulted into expansion of millet production  to over 112 districts across 14 states, as of 2018-19.

• Incentivise farmers to grow millets: E.g. Minimum Support Price (MSP) for Ragi, Bajra and Jowar were hiked by 113 %, 72 % and 71 % respectively in 2020 when compared to  2014-15.

• Scheme to increase the area, production and yield of nutri-cereals: includes - 

• Encouraging farmers to align their local cropping patterns to India’s diverse 127 agro-climatic zones.

• Provision of seed kits and inputs to farmers.
• Building value chains through Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs).
• Supporting the marketability by inclusion in the Public Distribution System (PDS).

• Initiatives by Ministry of Women and Child Development: includes setting up of nutri-gardens and running behavioural change campaign to generate consumer demand for nutri-cereals.

Conclusion: The multi-ministerial policy framework is a strategic move towards building an Atmanirbhar Bharat which resonates with the global call for self-sufficiency and sustainable development.