From your kitchen to your bathroom, to your clothes and make-up, from infant food to yoga energy bars, the world has been taken over by all things organic or millet. The health-conscious are driving a frenzied demand for back-to-roots simple food.
You had to be at the Organics & Millets 2019 International Trade Fair this past weekend in Bengaluru to get a pulse on the phenomenal amount of things that fall in this bracket. No wonder the city is known as the organic and millet capital of India. Karnataka was in fact the first State to formulate an Organic Farming Policy way back in 2004, revised in 2017. It was an event to bring together farmers, traders, suppliers, the B2B sector, and people like us– the all-important consumer!
Farmers had workshops and lectures to attend, they roamed the stalls making enquiries, consumers bought and tasted food, cooking demonstrations and competitions were abuzz. The food court dished out the many possibilities that millets brought with them.
The amounts of instant and processed packaged organic and millet foods at the over 400 stalls this year was striking and left us wondering on what the core idea of going organic and getting back to millets is all about.
Millets have been flattened, beaten, popped, roasted, powdered, ground or fried into a multitude of snacks — papads and mixtures, organic chilli pickles and preserves, noodles, shaavige and pasta, breakfast pre-mixes, malts, laddoos and cookies , multi-lentil ready-to-serve breakfasts, breads, dehydrated and vacuum dried organic vegetable chips, drinks, chutney powders, organic instant food bars…one could go on and on. Enough sweets and savouries to last a few janmas and generations. From all-natural and organic bathroom cleaners and laundry liquids, to organic lip balms, hair colours and shampoo, reusable bamboo crockery, the level of products has been upped.
In the organic millet produce section, while glitzy and well-known urban brands made their presence felt, it was heartening to see rural and home-enterprise based products being lapped up. Free tasting-samples were the toast of the day, and many visitors made a smart meal of it. Recipe books and leaflets being bandied about were another bonus.
It was also a great forum to see what millets look like in their natural form before they arrive jacketed in packets in our supermarkets. A visit would have made for a great educational tour for kids on the food chain. The foxtail millet actually looks like a furry foxtail! Seeing a nutmeg fruit or even the areca nut in its whole fruit form was exciting. And after all the fancy talk about cold pressed oils, you could peek into a wood-based cold press machine that does the actual oil extraction.
What was also appreciable, at least on Day 1 at the venue, was the use of biodegradable materials for samplers and tasters, constant cleaning, and steel plates being used in the food court. It was heartening, also, to see that so many millets and organic products are being grown in the country, that there were so many cooperatives and farming societies from all over the home state of Karnataka as well as from States such as Chhattisgarh and Telangana that had brought so many innovations to the table.
Manipur brought food we rarely get to see — fermented bamboo products and black rice tea. While it was a Karnataka Government initiative, the mela also brought a surprisingly enthusiastic participation from Government and quasi-government research institutions from all over the country.
