Context

• India has been the largest producer of millets globally. Three varieties of millet, viz., pearl millet (bajra), sorghum (jowar), and finger millet (ragi), constitute the largest share of India’s total millet production. 
• Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, and Uttarakhand are the major millet-producing States in India. These ten states accounted for around 98 per cent of the production of millets in the country in 2020-21. 
• According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, out of the total area in the world under millet production and the total millet production in the world, India constitutes 19 per cent and 20 per cent, respectively.

Green Revolutions & its Impacts

• The Green Revolution in India brought modern technology to Indian agriculture. The movement advocated the use of high-yielding varieties of seeds with improved chemical-fertigation, mechanisation and agronomic practices aimed at achieving self- sufficiency for the country’s foodgrain production. 
• The focus of the Green Revolution on high yielding variety seeds of rice and wheat changed India’s status from a food-deficient country to one of the foodgrain-surplus nations of the world. 
• Though the Green Revolution achieved its prime objective of making India self- sufficient in foodgrains, the approach somehow could not accord concurrent importance to the production and propagation of millets. Consequently, the proportion of millets in our food basket diminished over the years.

Significance of Millets

• Millets consist of various small-seeded plants, including pearl, sorghum, foxtail, finger, barnyard, etc., and are also interchangeably referred to as nutri-cereals, super-foods, and Shree Anna. 
• Nutritional enrichment, an ‘environment friendly’ cropping pattern, and remunerative considerations comprise the trinity that forms the foundation of the recent drive to promote millets. 
• Most millets have high contents of proteins, fibres, vitamins, and essential minerals and are an attractive gluten-free substitute for cereals. Some nutritional benefits of millets include low absorption of fats and low glycemic indices.
• These cereals have the required capacity to reduce overdependence on more commonly raised water-guzzling crops like rice, boosting diverse diets, and ensuring food security for all. 
• Millets can be grown in varied landforms and climatic conditions, thereby ensuring environmental adaptability. They are resistant to drought and most pests. 
• Irrigation requirements for some millets are relatively lower than those for paddy and wheat. Moreover, millets as compared to rice and wheat require a shorter duration between sowing and harvesting, thereby making the former more ideal for adopting crop rotation. 
• Thus, production of millets can contribute a lot to the global efforts of addressing the challenges related to mitigation and adaptation to climate change.

Awareness to Boost Millet Consumption

• Despite there being evidence of the cultivation of millets as far back as ancient civilisations of Harappa and Mesopotamia, the consumption of millets has not really taken off. 
• Consequently, to promote the consumption of millets, the Government of India has taken a number of diverse steps, which range from augmenting productivity to ensuring nutritional enhancement; from encouraging value addition entrepreneurship development, and from bolstering the value chain to crop diversification. 
• Further, the Union Budget 2023-24 had announced that the Indian Institute of Millet Research in Hyderabad will be supported as the Centre of Excellence for sharing best practices, research, and technologies at the international level.
• A necessary pre-requisite for any of these steps to succeed is the creation of awareness about various aspects of millets. Awareness generation among farmers becomes as crucial as awareness generation among consumers. 
• While for consumers, nutritional aspects, prices, and accessibility, including availability on Government e-Marketplace and e-commerce platforms, would be important determinants of demand, for other stakeholders, cropping pattern, access to technology and markets, availability of research and development, linkages with Farmer Producer Organisations, storage, constituents of the supply chain, etc., are of significance.

Conclusion

• The need of the hour is to ensure the emergence of an appropriate supply-chain and value-chain from pre-production to processing and marketing. 
• A challenge that needs to be addressed swiftly is the compliance of exports with sanitary and phytosanitary measures, which will lead to a global demand-pull for millets produced in India.
• A renewed emphasis on millets has the potential of generating positive externalities in the form of better nutrition for citizens, environmental sustainability, retention of soil fertility, and better incomes for the cultivators.