News Highlight
The millet is valued in the Kutia Kondh tribe’s life and dietary systems of Odisha, and they cultivate around 12 types of Millet.
Key Takeaway
- The Centre and the State government are ready to adopt its promotion model of Millets cultivation.
- The Burlang Yatra, a traditional annual festival of the Kutia Kondh tribe, was the occasion around which they could strategise the revival of millets.
- In the past, millet was the staple food of tribes in Odisha.
- When paddy and other foods reached their doorstep through the public distribution system and the expanding consumer market, they treated millet as a subsistence crop.
Millet
- About
- Millets are a group of cereal grains that belong to the Poaceae family, commonly known as the grass family.
- Distribution
- India, Nigeria and China are the largest producers of millet in the world, accounting for more than 55% of the global production.
- Millets are available almost across India.
- Major millets in India
- Three major millet crops currently growing in India are jowar (sorghum), bajra (pearl millet) and ragi (finger millet).
Significance of millets
- Nutritionally Superior
- Millets are rich sources of minerals like calcium, iron, zinc, phosphorus, magnesium, and potassium.
- Gluten-free
- Millets can help tackle lifestyle problems and health challenges such as obesity and diabetes as they are gluten-free and have a low glycemic index (a relative ranking of carbohydrates in foods according to how they affect blood glucose levels).
- Super Crop
- Millets are Photo-insensitive (do not require a specific photoperiod for flowering) and resilient to climate change. In addition, millets can grow on poor soils with little or no external inputs.
- Wide capacity for adaptation
- Millets have a broad capacity for adaptation because they can grow from coastal regions of Andhra Pradesh to moderately high altitudes of Northeastern states and hilly areas of Uttarakhand.
- Millets can withstand variations in moisture, temperature and the type of soils ranging from heavy to sandy infertile lands.
Initiatives
- Initiative for Nutritional Security through Intensive Millet Promotion
- It aims to demonstrate the improved production and post-harvest technologies in an integrated manner with a visible impact to catalyse increased production of millets in the country.
- NIRMAN
- It is in collaboration with the Millet Network of India (MINI), a forum founded to promote millet.
- Increase in Minimum Support Price
- The government has hiked the Minimum Support Price of Millet, which came as a big price incentive for farmers.
- The International Year of Millets 2023
- The United Nations, at the behest of the Government of India, declared 2023 the International Year Millets.
- The National Year of Millets – 2018
- The Government of India has approved 2018 as the National Year of Millets to boost the production of nutrient-rich millets and the agro-industries involved in its production.
Content Source: The Hindu