Declaring millets as the future of food and farming for India, representatives of farmers, scientists, development academics and civil society activists have called for immediate inclusion of millets in the Public Distribution System of India. They also said that millets can be the only answer to the agrarian, ecological and energy crisis as well as the impending climate change challenges that is haunting Indian farming.

Participating in a two day National Consultation on Millets organized by the Millet Network of India [MINI] and the Deccan Development Society, Andhra Pradesh, the group brought a Hyderabad Declaration on Millets in which they called for honouring millet farmers with an Ecological Bonus

“Since millet farmers can be completely rainfed, they save nearly six million litres of water per acre for the nation. The biodiversity inherent in their farming systems help fix carbon in the soils thereby responding to a critical Climate Change concern. Millet farming also represents multiple securities such as food, fodder, fiber, health, nutrition, livelihood and ecological securities. All these potentials of millet farming systems entitle the millet farmers to the Ecological Bonus from a grateful nation”, the Hyderabad Declaration said.

The revival of millets can only be possible if it is put on the Public Distribution System alongside wheat and rice, the Declaration said. Such a new millet based PDS has to be completely decentralized with community production, procurement, storage and distribution all of which must be supported and funded by the government. Such an action will not only regenerate millet farming but also can answer the nutritional emergency India is facing.

Affirming that millets can be the only answer to the malnutrition haunting India which is placed below the sub Saharan nations in its nutritional status, the Declaration called for introduction of millets in ICDS programmes, midday meal programme in the schools and into the social welfare hostels since they offer an enormous amount of nutrition which rice and wheat cannot compete with.  [See comparative nutrition table attached]

The Declaration also demanded that the government use the NREGA [National Rural Employment Guarantee Act] to support millet farming especially on the fields of the small and marginal farmers from sowing to harvesting. This could result not only in a great resurrection of millet farming but also move farmers out of the agrarian crisis they are facing.

Demanding an end to the current unjust system of depriving millet farming its due share in the institutional financing systems, the Declaration says: Institutional finance and insurance which is offered generously to farmers who cultivate preferred grains such as rice and wheat and non food crops must be extended to millet farmers.

Apart from the focus on community-controlled local food security, millets should enter the new and emerging markets for the burgeoning health conscious, urban populations with value addition as health food using appropriate processing and other technologies said the Declaration and called for the establishment of a network of NGO-facilitated markets operated by civil society groups who promote millets from their areas. Such a market network is key promotion of millets. Such a market network rescues millets from the trap of the corporate controlled organic markets which have narrow parameters of profit and not the wider concept of millets.

The other demands made by the Declaration are:

• Recognising the biodiversity in millet farming systems, government must focus on farming system development as against single crop improvement. Such a system orientation to millet cultivation would do justice to the values and farming ethos that millets represent.
• A new farmer led research on millet farming system should be initiated by the agricultural research institutions and universities to bring an exciting perspective and agenda to millet farming.

[p v satheesh]
National Convenor