Reliance Foundation organises conference on ‘Shaping Perspectives on Practise and Policy for Millets in India’

New Delhi [India]: Diverse stakeholders from across India’s millet landscape emphasised that challenges of food security, farm livelihoods and nutrition diversity can be resolved in a climate-resilient manner by building on the momentum generated during the International Year of Millets (IYOM).

The stakeholders outlined their experience at a multi-stakeholder conference ‘Shaping Perspectives on Practise and Policy for Millets in India’, organised by Reliance Foundation in Delhi on Tuesday.

Delivering the keynote address at the conference, Shubha Thakur, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, detailed the Government of India’s efforts to take the millet agenda ahead.

“We have created six task forces, in Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of health, one in the nutrition sector to continue the journey of millets. Millets are a crop for the future,” she said.

“It is heartening to see the Reliance Foundation working with farmers. A multi-stakeholder approach is very important if millets are to succeed. To help increase farmers’ incomes, there needs to be value addition through branding, export potential and more,” she added.

Jagannatha Kumar, CEO, of Reliance Foundation, said, “This decade has been historic for the global food systems dialogue, and transformational for millets. We are witnessing the discourse change to millets being sought after and India has led this change from the front.”

He further outlined that the strong momentum generated so far should enable us to leapfrog into an era when millets are coming of age in providing food security and diversity amidst climate change.

“This will also help balance natural resources through climate-resilient farming practises while securing better livelihoods for small and marginal farmers through a value chain approach. It is essential to build on this momentum, with shared development goals. At Reliance Foundation, we are deeply committed to diversifying food and farming systems with millets and we will continue to build on discussions such as today’s along with other opportunities to share our learnings with stakeholders across the ecosystem,” he added.

Policymakers, farmer representatives, development sector stakeholders, researchers and industry representatives echoed the need for greater collaboration, increased farmer-focused efforts, and deliberated successes and challenges from both practise and policy within India’s millet landscape, a release of the Reliance Foundation mentioned.

A publication, ‘Fostering Resilience for Sustainability: Reliance Foundation’s Millet Experiences’, that documents learnings from millet interventions in different states was released on the occasion, it added.
‘Fostering Resilience for Sustainability’ showcases end-to-end interventions that include making quality seed accessible to farmers, providing continued technical support, strengthening market linkages, empowering women’s agencies and building awareness of millets, the release said.

Speakers at the discussions included NRLM Director Raman Wadhwa, NITI Aayog Senior Advisor Neelam Patel, Chief of Rural Transformation at Reliance Foundation Priyanka Singh, Columbia University professor Ruth DeFries, Head of Staples Reliance Retail Prasoon Bhardwaj, Kazhani Farmers Producer Co, TN (FPO) CEO KP Kavitha, Asst Director, Dept. of Women and Child Development, Madhya Pradesh RK Tiwari, millets farmer from Gujarat’s Narmada Savitaben Vasava, senior policymakers, researchers, practitioners and agriculture experts participated in the event.

The release stated that since 2010, the Reliance Foundation has been focusing on sustainable agriculture and strengthening food systems through a collaborative approach with various stakeholders.
The work with millet small and marginal farmers is another step to build resilience in the face of changing climate while enhancing the nutritional status of communities, the release added.

Having observed 2018 as its ‘National Year of Millets’, India presented the proposal for the ‘International Year of Millets’ (IYOM) in the United Nations. At the 75th General Assembly session of the UN in March 2021, the year 2023 was declared IYOM to increase global awareness of the benefits of consuming and growing millets.

India is the world’s largest millet producer and its average production of 16.93 million metric tons during 2019-22 was about 11% higher than the production during 2014-18. Though the area under millet cultivation has reduced, productivity has markedly increased over the years.