Brain Booster for UPSC & State PCS Examination (Topic: Increasing Millet Production and Procurement)

Why in Broadcast?

The cultivation of millets, known as nutri-cereal crops, plays a vital role in addressing micronutrient deficiencies and ensuring nutritional security in India. However, the area dedicated to nutri-cereal cultivation has been steadily declining, posing a threat to food security.

Millet is a collective term for a number of small-seeded annual grasses cultivated as grain crops, primarily on marginal lands in dry areas in temperate, subtropical and tropical regions.
They include cereals like sorghum (jowar), pearl millet (bajra), foxtail millet (kangni/ Italian millet), little millet (kutki), kodo millet, finger millet (ragi/ mandua) etc.
There is evidence for consumption of millets in the Indus-Sarasvati civilisation (3,300 to 1300 BCE), they were the first crops to be domesticated.

Millets are now grown in more than 130 countries, and are the traditional food for more than half a billion people in Asia and Africa.
Globally, sorghum (jowar) is the biggest millet crop. The major producers of jowar are the United States, China, Australia, India, Argentina, Nigeria, and Sudan.
Bajra is another major millet crop and countries like India and some other African countries are its major producers.
Major millet importing countries in the world include Indonesia, Belgium, Japan, Mexico, Italy, USA, UK, Brazil and Netherlands.

Millets are mainly a kharif crop in India. During 2018-19, three millet crops i.e. bajra (3.67%), jowar (2.13%), and ragi (0.48%), accounted for about 7 per cent of the gross cropped area in the country.
As per DGCIS data, India has total export of millets around 159,331.16 metric tonnes against 147, 501.08 metric tonnes last year, thus the country registered a growth of 8.02% in millet exports.
India’s major export destination are UAE, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Oman, Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, UK and USA.