Vol. 11, Special Issue 4 (2022)

Author(s):
Kondala Lokesh, Chetan R Dudhagara, Ashish B Mahera, Sathish Kumar M and HD Patel

Abstract:
In India 86 per cent of farmers are small and marginal who are facing financial insecurities. Indian women and children are facing malnutrition and hidden hunger problems. In the upcoming decades, the world agriculture production could decrease due to climate change. To address these major ongoing issues, the role of millets as a smart food is inevitable. India is the leading producer of millets in the world with 10.9 million tons in the year 2019 (Das et al., 2019) ^[5]. Bajra is having highest production among millets followed by sorghum and ragi in India (Gowri and Shivakumar, 2020) ^[6]. There is a declining trend in the area under millet cultivation of India from 1955 to 2019. The government institutes like IIMR and ICRISAT are continuously working to promote the production and productivity of millets by developing various technologies for the farmers & other stack holders. Government of India is also working on millets to improve the level of production and consumption of millets in India by introducing various schemes and policies like ICRP, INSIMP, NFSM, introducing millets as a mid-day meal and providing MSPs to major millets like bajra, sorghum and ragi. However, the demand of millets and its value-added products is very less. So, government should promote the health benefits of millets by organizing various awareness campaigns and should carry intensive consumer survey to assess their perception and knowledge on millets. Government should make provisions to introduce millets in the Public Distribution System to increase the demand for millets and run mid-day meal scheme in schools on large scale basis to eliminate the hidden hunger among the children. Government should also provide incentives and subsidies to new start-ups to promote millet based value-added food production.