In addition to being great for animal feed, millets are highly nutritious, contributing to nutrition security. Millet fields also host a variety of other crops, such as red gram and amaranth, which provide additional products like fuelwood and fibre. The companion crops grown alongside millets, like legumes, shed their leaves, which act as natural manure, helping maintain soil fertility. This means that millet farming not only uses the soil but also enriches it, making it sustainable for the long term.
Given their many benefits, there has been a significant push to promote the consumption of millets in India. Particular attention has been paid to processing and adding value to millets like finger millet and small millets. Millets are known for being low in bulk but high in nutrients, with a good balance of essential amino acids. For example, finger millet contains 30 times more calcium than rice, and foxtail and little millet also surpass rice in nutritional value. Additionally, millets contain high levels of beta carotene, which is important for eye health.
In an effort to revive interest in forgotten millet varieties like foxtail millet, sorghum, kodo millet, little millet, proso millet, and barnyard millet, events are being organized by organizations such as the Rainbow Lifeline Conservation Society. These events showcase value-added millet products like flour, papad, chaklis, cakes, and biscuits. The Millet Network of India and other organizations emphasize that millets provide multiple securities, including food, nutrition, fodder, fibre, health, livelihood, and ecological balance.
Compared to rice and wheat, millets are far superior in terms of nutrition. For instance, finger millet has significantly more calcium, and millets like foxtail and little millet are rich in nutrients. They are also more drought-resistant and require less water, making them ideal for climate change adaptation. Because of these traits, experts like G. Krishna Prasad, director of Sahaja Samrudha, argue that millets should be included in India’s Public Distribution System (PDS). This would ensure that the poor have access to both food and nutrition security.
Different regions of India grow different varieties of millets. Rajasthan, for example, is known for its pearl millet (bajra), while the Deccan Plateau in Maharashtra, Telangana, and northern Karnataka is famous for sorghum. Finger millet, or ragi, is commonly grown in southern Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Odisha, and Karnataka. In hilly regions like Uttarakhand, a variety of small millets, including foxtail, proso, kodo, and barnyard millets, are cultivated.
If millets are included in the PDS, it would help provide better food security for people living below the poverty line. A millet-focused PDS should be decentralized, with local production, storage, and distribution. However, government support is crucial for procurement and storage to make this system work. Millets should also be included in government food programs like the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), school meals, and welfare hostels. This would help tackle malnutrition, particularly among young children, where India’s statistics are currently worse than those of sub-Saharan Africa.
Efforts should also be made to increase millet productivity on rain-fed lands, where these crops are typically grown. Programs like NREGA (National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) can be aligned with millet cultivation to support farmers from planting to harvesting. By doing so, we can ensure that millets continue to nourish not just people but the land itself.
