Climate-resilient grains

UN resolution will help boost awareness about millets

The unanimous approval by the United Nations General Assembly of the resolution sponsored by India with the backing of 70 countries to declare 2023 as the International Year of Millets is a welcome step towards resurrecting these nutrient-dense and climate change-resilient food crops. These small-sized, multi-utility grains, commonly termed pseudo-cereals or coarse-grains, but aptly rechristened as nutri-cereals, had been elbowed out of production and consumption by rice and wheat after the Green Revolution. The policy of procurement-based price support for these two fine-grained but less nutritious staples, coupled with their supply through the public distribution system at highly subsidised rates,