National Forum for Policy Dialogue Millets 2009 II National Consultation on Millets by
Nehru Memorial Museum and Library and Millet Network of India (MINI) 16 and 17 November 2009
With an unprecedented draught and looming climate change crisis in the current scenario, it was felt that there was an urgent need for a paradigm shift to shape the food and farming futures of this country. If we failed now, we would be left desolate for food in the coming decades. In this context, the Millet Network of India in collaboration with the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library organized a two-day national consultation on Millets on 16 and 17 November 2009.
As per the booklet distributed by the Millet Network of India, the area under millet production has been shrinking over the last five decades and rapidly, despite all the extraordinary qualities and capacities of millet farming systems, since the Green Revolution period. Between 1966 and 2006, 44 per cent of millet cultivation areas were occupied by other crops signifying an extraordinary loss to India’s food and farming systems. Declining state support in terms of crop loans and crop insurance has significantly contributed to this decline and fall of millets in Indian agriculture.
Unless this is halted urgently through a slew of policy and financial incentives, it was felt millets might disappear from the agrarian landscape of India over the next fifty years. This will not only be a loss to India’s food and farming systems, but will also prove to be a civilizational and ecological disaster. Therefore, there is an urgent need for Indian policy makers to refocus their attention towards millet farming systems and enact policies that create an enabling environment for millet farmers.
The seminar discussed the urgent and immediate needs of putting millets into the public distribution system. The Indian public distribution system would be enriched with the high nutritive quality of these millets if they are included in it. A nutritive analysis of millets vis a vis the major grains such as rice and wheat prove that nutrient to nutrient, millets score highly over the other grains.
