Millets: At the intersection of sustainable food systems and nutritional security
By Elizabeth Mathew
It all began in the 1960s with the Green Revolution. The mechanization of agriculture, the focus on high-yielding variety seeds, the pervasive use of synthetic fertilizers that years later tampered with the nutrient loop resulting in depleted quality and reduced ability of the soil to store carbon and the disproportionate emphasis on rice and wheat in national policies in an attempt to address food insecurity as large sections of the burgeoning population continued to be hungry and malnourished. Today, agricultural and food production systems contribute 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) attributable to the kind of crops grown, the methods used, deforestation to make space for food cultivation, sustained consumption of ruminant animal protein corresponding to a growing population and the emissions at every point in the supply chain from processing to transportation to food wasted at the household level and its disposal.
We are well on our way toward a 1–2.5-degrees Celsius rise in average global temperature by 2030 and the climate vagaries that will ensue affecting crop yields and access to food appear inevitable and daunting as we stand here peering into a bleak future. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts that in the next few decades, billions of people, especially in the developing world, will face changes in rainfall patterns that will cause prolonged periods of drought or flooding and increasing temperatures that will impact crop growing seasons. A disastrous consequence that is expected to follow is the additional food insecurities that will adversely impact the poor in developing nations who cannot meet their food requirements through market access.
In the face of a looming climate and corollary food crisis, it is critical not just to institute and fortify the necessary infrastructure and safety net mechanisms for protection of the population, especially the most vulnerable, from anticipated food shortages but to also identify nutrient-rich food crops that can better adapt to a changing climatic situation while staving off malnutrition and institutionally mainstream these to facilitate widespread access and stability of supply as a significant step toward building resilience. Strengthening local communities and creating and promoting close-to-home food production, distribution and consumption networks must be given some thought to as an adaptation strategy as global supply chains become unreliable against the backdrop of increasing prevalence of epidemics and natural disasters triggered by climate change.
Millets are definitely in the running for one of the best alternatives apt for the dire times on the horizon of the foreseeable future. Among all the major cereal crops, wheat has the highest global warming potential of around 4 tons CO2 eq/ha followed by rice and maize (around 3.4 tons CO2 eq/ha). These crops also have a high carbon equivalent emission of 1000, 956 and 935 kg C/ha for wheat, rice and maize, respectively. Despite their higher emission rates, they are widely cultivated and are primary sources of nutrition for the global population. However, the carbon footprints of other minor cereal crops such as millets and sorghum are comparatively lower.
A hardy, drought and high temperature-resistant crop, the millet flourishes in rain-fed arid and semi-arid regions of the country under marginal conditions of soil fertility. It has an efficient root system that can pull water even from erratic rainfall of less than 350–400 mm of rainfall in a year received over a few days. According to the Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), a global research organisation helping to make millets more popular, millets require 2.5 times less water compared to rice and is traditionally incorporated into multi-cropping systems that organically fertilize the soil while at the same time offering farmers a wider diversity of crops that contribute to additional revenue as opposed to the substantial burden of risk posed by mono-cropping where the farmer is dependent on a single crop. Consisting of diverse endemic varieties, they require minimal water and save the farmer thousands of rupees on chemical fertilizers and pesticides, winning its rightful place as a favourite of the Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF) Movement that is gaining traction among local farmers in various states including Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. They are generally pest-resistant and can be protected with natural pest-repellents derived from neem or cattle by-products. Known as C4 crops, millets have higher efficiency in absorbing and utilizing carbon dioxide and have been observed to recover quickly from weather-related stresses. Methane emissions from rice production outstrip the amount released by millet cultivation, one reason for which can be explained by the difference in method with the persistence of the traditional practice of intermittent flooding to prevent weeds continuing in paddy cultivation which results in outsize methane emissions from rotting organic matter.
It is interesting to note that as per government statistics, acreage under minor millets diminished by 46%, from a maximum area of 47.34 million hectares in 1967 to 25.67 million hectares in 2013. Millets were an important part of the local food basket, constituting a nutritive component of the small and marginal farmers’ subsistence, until the 1960s when the Green Revolution prioritised rice and wheat backed by government subsidies and integration of this limited choice of food grains into food security schemes. Millets along the way were reduced to ‘poor man’s food’, carrying a classist connotation that pushed it to the margins of the nation’s palate, away from our plates.
Millets are now seeing a resurgence with several organizations and agriculture research institutions scientifically quantifying its ecological and nutritional benefits, especially in the context of increasing fluctuations in weather patterns. The National Food Security Act (NFSA), 2013 provides for the distribution of millets encapsulated within ‘coarse grains’ in the text of the Act, to be sourced locally and made available at 1 Rs. per kilogram. Karnataka is in fact the first and only state to include millets in its PDS under the scheme titled ‘Anna Bhagya Yojana’ that had the twin objectives of procuring millets from farmers with corresponding cash flows to rural farm households and allowing households with PDS cards to gain access to nutritious foodgrain at low prices.
Millets have higher nutritional value than rice and wheat. Studies correlate 20% of diabetes among the poor with exclusive dependence on rice from PDS. On the contrary, lower incidences of diabetes have been reported in millet-consuming populations. In India, micronutrient deficiency continues to afflict large sections of the population, particularly children under 5, adolescent girls and pregnant and lactating women, a susceptibility pattern that sustains poor nutritional status over generations. In general, millets are a rich source of B-complex vitamins, minerals and fibre. They are an excellent source of vitamin B, magnesium, and antioxidants. Millet is also a good source of other dietary minerals like manganese, phosphorus and iron. Nutrient content and concentration vary based on the type of millet. Finger millet contains 344 mg calcium in a 100 g serving, Pearl millet contains 16.9 mg iron in a 100 g portion and Proso millet has 12.5 g protein per 100 g.
Nutritional Security through Intensive Millet Promotion (INSIMP) is an underrated venture launched by the union government in 2011–12 that sought to catalyse the cultivation of millets to enhance nutritional security. But the major red flags are signalled by its failure to acknowledge endemic varieties of millets and engage with indigenous knowledge and farming systems by advocating for the universal cultivation of certain types and promoting the use of chemical fertilizers. Mainstreaming millets through the PDS and Midday Meal Scheme in every state by local sourcing offers massive scope for the expansion of its cultivation as a solution to mass food insecurity and malnutrition. Impediments to increased cultivation and consumption exist in the form of difficulty in processing the cereal, which burden, in the absence of adequate processing units accessible to small and marginal cultivators, falls upon the women who take on the drudgery of manual processing, and the lack of palate for the cereal crop, apart from the aforementioned reason of aggressive promotion of rice and wheat through government subsidies and policies. It is important that the government steps up and incentivizes small farmers who cultivate millets while pegging a higher MSP for millet procurement to promote its cultivation among more farmers against other food grains and cash crops, setting up more processing units and investing in high-yielding varieties that do not detract from the millet’s natural characteristics that make it climate-change resilient.
Government and urban and rural consumer support of local varieties of millets and indigenous processes of farming are also vital to the food sovereignty dimension of sustainable agriculture and food security. Policy formulation must factor this in by envisioning, emulating and implementing innovative models like Community Seed Banks run by local farmers where farmers can sell and buy high-quality indigenous type millet seeds (resulting in optimum yield for household consumption and market sales) at affordable prices that would serve to promote the local variety as a viable and lucrative alternative to the dominant food crops, and CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) in creating local farmer-consumer food systems that address supply and demand on the basis of spatial proximity, personal investment and strong relations between the producer and consumer of safe, nutritious and sustainable food, constructing critical networks of resilient food production, consumption and distribution in the process.
