Stakeholders working on agricultural issues and spearheading campaign to promote millets and other neglected crops have urged the State government to announce the constitution of Millet Mission in the forthcoming budget to address the issues of malnutrition and stunted growth among children.
Making a strong case for promoting millets, the stakeholders have also stressed the importance of millets in shoring up farmers’ income. A memorandum has also been submitted to the government ahead of the budget and the expectations are high that such a view would be considered given the prevailing drought.
The memorandum seeking a policy for millet promotion and constituting millet mission, was a fall out of a round table conference held in Mysuru on December 20th and attended by 50 experts resulting in a slew of recommendations to the government, said G. Krishnaprasad of Sahaja Samrudha, an organisation advocating sustainable agriculture and millet promotion.
The memorandum was drafted by Anita Reddy, associate director of stakeholders and she pointed out that Karnataka was at the forefront in cultivation of millets and has also received government support by way of the inclusion of jowar and ragi under public distribution system.
Besides, the groundwork done by activists advocating millet cultivation, the awareness of health benefits of millet consumption has led to an increase in their demand in the State. But what is disconcerting is that despite certain positive developments the area under millet cultivation has not increased, said the stakeholders. While teh area under millet cultivation was around 21 lakh hectares in 2017-18, it was down to 16 lakh hectare by 2022-23, said Ms. Anita Reddy.
In a bid to increase production and area under millet cultivation, the experts urged the government to declare honorarium to farmers switching to millet to enable them to learn different methods under which these dry crops can be grown. The government was urged to create infrastructure and an ecosystem to enable farmers to take up millet cultivation with ease.
The memorandum also called for decentralising seed production by encouraging the traditional seed savers and growers among farmers to establish a seed bank locally. This would ensure that there was no scarcity of seeds while obviating the need for farmers to procure seeds from outside, thus minimising the production cost. The stakeholders said as the cost of cultivation was low millet could as well be the panacea to bail them out of the present crisis plaguing the farmers and the agricultural sector.
The attention of the government was also drawn to lack of millet processing units which, it was pointed out, was the main hurdle in promoting millet on a larger scale. If simple and cost-effective processing units were to be established, millet cultivation, value addition to the crop and consumption would receive a boost, said the stakeholders.
While there was considerable public awareness of the health benefits of millet consumption, it was also imperative to popularise the culinary delights that can be churned out to encourage the general public to experiment with them. The stakeholders also urged the government to include millet-based eatables and products in Hopcoms, Nandini parlours, Indira canteens, and all government canteens so as to stimulate demand for them.
The mission could also stimulate demand by including millet-based products in the mid-day meal schemes for schools, distribution through PDS all of which would have a positive cascading impact on farmers.
