Good food journey: How India can build on gains from the year of millets

Year of millets over, we need to dedicate a decade to these grains to build on the gains of 2023

The Food and Agriculture Organisation held the closing ceremony for the International Year of Millets 2023 in Rome on March 29 this year, with a firm commitment to build further on the achievements of 2023. It was the 75th session of the United Nations General Assembly, in March 2021, where India proposed that 2023 be declared the International Year of Millets. Seventy countries supported the proposal.
 

As a result, the humble and much-neglected grains gained unprecedented global and national attention. Through the year, millets were arguably the most talked about food items on the domestic as well as international stage, and continue to be.

Countless events associated with the grains, cooking sessions, seminars, and product launches marked the year. No food spread at official or private ceremonies was complete without millet dishes, which were a highlight at the G20 in New Delhi last year.
 

Companies big and small rushed to capitalise, and launched a plethora of products featuring millets: From cookies to exotic and gourmet dishes. More than 1,000 startups doing various work through millets sprang up in the last few years. No less than 30 to 40 global companies are working on these grains.

 

Vilas Tonapi, former director of the Indian Institute of Millets Research (IIMR), Hyderabad, who is now a research and development consultant at Advanta Seeds, told Business Standard the International Year of Millets showcased the grains on local and global platforms as crops that could help in ensuring food security without affecting the climate. The knowledge about millets spread far and wide.
 

Several novel food trends, such as the full range of Ready to Eat items, came up during the year incorporating millets. The millets value chain strengthened. Above all, says Tonapi, farmers started getting a somewhat better price for millets.

 

The millets journey
 

Millets are not new to India. They are mentioned in prehistoric texts. However, due to the push to food security through the Green Revolution in the 1960s, millets were rendered “orphan crops” — less consumed and almost forgotten.
 

Before the Green Revolution, millets made up around 40 per cent of all cultivated grains, but shrank to around 20 per cent over the years. Not only did their consumption decline, but also the area under millets production was replaced with commercial crops, oilseeds, pulses, and maize.
 

India produces more than 17 million tonnes of millets a year, which is 80 per cent of Asia’s and 20 per cent of the global output. Ten states, characterised by low to moderate annual precipitation (200–800 mm rainfall), produce almost all the millets grown in India. These are Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana.
 

Jowar (sorghum), bajra (pearl millet), and ragi (finger millet) together account for more than 70 per cent of the total millets produced in India.

 

Health impact
 

A few years ago, a cross-country study found that millets could boost growth in children and adolescents when they replaced rice in standard meals. The study, published in the journal, Nutrients, was done by seven organisations in four countries. It was led by S Anitha, Senior Scientist-Nutrition, with the Hyderabad-based International Crops Research Institute of the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT).
 

Among the children given millet-based meals, a relative increase of 28.2 per cent in the mean height, 26 per cent in weight, 39 per cent in the mid upper arm circumference, and 37 per cent in chest circumference was noted when compared to children on regular rice-based diets.
 

The children studied consumed millets over three months to 4.5 years.
 

Several other studies show the health benefits of millets.

 

Sustaining the push
 

Beyond the apparent benefits, the question remains whether the momentum and focus millets received in 2023 can be sustained. In spite of the push, millets acreage and production in India dropped in 2023-24 compared to the previous year, according to the second advance estimates.
 

The area under the “shree anna” basket of millets, taken together, declined by 4 per cent in 2023-24 crop year, while production fell 11 per cent, and yield went down by 7.4 per cent (see chart). These numbers, since they are from the second advance estimates, are open to revision.
 

The Commission for Agriculture Costs and Prices (CACP), in a recent report, said the “decreasing trend in area and production of nutri-cereals is a matter of great concern as the year 2023 is being celebrated worldwide as the 'International Year of Millets'.”
 

In 2023-24, the market prices of the major millets were high, but over a longer time-frame, the return from these grains are not commensurate with their nearest rival. This makes farmers wary of growing millets on a large scale.
 

CACP’s recent data shows that in the Triennium Ending (TE) 2021-22, the Gross Returns over A2+FL cost of cultivation for paddy was around 42.1 per cent. In contrast, it was 19.3 per cent for jowar, 25.3 per cent for bajra, and a mere 4.1 per cent for ragi.
 

A triennium is a specified period of three years. A2+FL, which is the sum of all input costs plus own and family labour, is the benchmark used by the government to determine the minimum support price.
 

“The increased awareness about the nutrition value of millets without an increase in production has simply shifted millets from the bowl of poor and low-income household to the plates of middle- and high-income groups, while the average millet intake in the country is still declining,” said noted agriculture economist and NITI Aayog member, Ramesh Chand, in a newspaper article.

 

Turning the tide
 

Most experts say millets need to be at the forefront of India’s agricultural policy for the next 10 years, at least.
 

“There are live examples that show if we plant millets in rice fallows and in irrigated lands, providing it with the best cultivating conditions, the same as for crops such as paddy, jowar and bajra have a yield potential of 6.5-7 tonnes per hectare, while for small millets it is 4 tonnes, as against the current national average of 1.2 tonnes per hectare for all millets,” said Tonapi.
 

The yield per hectare of millets is less than paddy, as it is largely grown in unirrigated areas. But if we discount the support given to paddy in terms of free power, irrigation, and assured procurement, the realisation from millets can be higher than paddy.
 

According to Tonapi,if millets have to become remunerative for farmers, their market prices should never be below that of rice, because the nutritional benefits of millets is far higher than rice. "Hundred grams of rice is equivalent to 50 grams of millets, when it comes to the nutrition delivery. Therefore, millets consumption will be less and balance out the prices," he said. 
 

Sabyasachi Das, National Coordinator, Revitalizing Rainfed Agriculture Network, and Director of Watershed Support Services and Activities Network, said the government and everyone else needed to continue working on the entire millet ecosystem over the next few years.
 

“For example, we need local adoption of millets. In most other crops, hybrids were promoted, but in the case of millets, we need promotion of more localised varieties in a mission mode,” Das said.
 

According to him, states that have announced their own Millet Missions, such as Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, and Maharashtra, need to look at the nutritional security of millet varieties, not just productivity. “The Central government, for its part, needs to look at a millet decade now, and, for the next four to five years, work extensively to promote local production and consumption of millets to make the grains truly mainstream,” Das said.
 

One way to promote mass consumption of millets, experts say, is to incorporate them in public programmes, such as mid-day meals in schools.  
 

So, though the year of millets is over, a Millet Decade could come knocking.