‘India wishes to hold out R&D in millet price chain’

“We should perform R&D in all spaces of the worth chain of millets and produce in combination the information of manufacturing, processing and garage and make it to be had to the shopper”, mentioned Vijaya Lakshmi Nadendla, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, addressing the plenary consultation on ‘Strengthening Millet Price Chain with Collaborative Method’, organised via FICCI on the International Millets ( Shree Anna) Convention.

The reliable additional mentioned that stepped forward sorts, higher shelf lifestyles, environment friendly processing and get entry to to markets are all important to enhance the millet price chain.

Talking at a separate consultation on “Alternative for Girls empowerment to create Millet luck tale”, Nadendla averred that girls’s contribution is immense in agriculture, without reference to conventional, horticultural or every other crop. She added that as the federal government is propagating millets cultivation and lengthening call for, it’s anticipated that extra ladies gets engaged within the cultivation of millets, thereby resulting in a necessity for skilling and capability construction. 

Nadendla alluded to the World 12 months of Millets marketing campaign and mentioned, “I’m very a lot hopeful that the call for will build up, and the markets will develop. There could also be an enormous export attainable”. 

She additionally spoke at the 10,000 Farmers Manufacturer Organisations (FPO) program of the federal government, pointing out the federal government is “completely selling 100% Girls FPOs” and issued a tenet for the inclusion of “one girl at the Board of Administrators of every FPO”. She additionally spoke at the devoted FPO programme within the Ministry of Agriculture with “quite a lot of measures for ladies empowerment.”

At the instance, Jitendra Joshi, Chairman, FICCI Job Pressure on Millets & Director Seeds, South Asia from Corteva Agriscience, mentioned, “Millets are nutritionally wealthy, simple to domesticate and sustainable farmer-friendly crop and not using a environmental affect. Because the PM completely narrated that millets are an answer for private well being and world well being.” 

“Let’s take our millets to the worldwide map,” he added.

Manoj Juneja, Deputy Govt Director and CFO, International Meals Programme (WFP), underlined that millet is the most important for meals and dietary safety, selling biodiversity and empowering farmers. “It’s top time we revive the logo of millets and foster resilient meals methods”, he mentioned. 

Sivakumar S, Workforce Head – Agri & IT Companies, ITC Restricted, emphasized synchronisation of the millets price chain as a essential requirement for scaling millets. On this regard, “Millets stakeholder partnerships are important to making such synchronisation”, he mentioned.