The term millet includes a number of small-grained cereal grasses. Based on the grain size, millets have been classified as major millets which include sorghum/great millet [Sorghum bicolor (L.)] and pearl millet/ spiked millet/ bajra [Pennisetum glaucum (L.) R. Br.] and small grain millets which include finger millet/ragi [Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn], foxtail millet/ italian millet/ kakum [Setaria italica (L.) P. Beaurv], kodo millet/ kodon (Paspalum scrobiculatum L.), proso millet/ common millet/ cheena (Panicum miliaceum L.), barnyard millet/ sanwa (Echinochloa frumentacea Link.) and little millet/ kutki (Panicum sumatrense Roth).

Millets cultivation is the mainstay of rain-fed farming on which 60% of Indian farmers depend. They provide food (used in various forms such as flour, flakes, biscuits, intact grains, etc.) as well as fodder and can be mix-cultivated (polyculture) with pulses and vegetables. Millets sequestrate carbon and thereby reduce the burden of green house gases. Millets have been called nutri-grains since they are rich in micronutrients like minerals and B-complex vitamins. Additionally millets are also rich in health promoting phytochemicals, and can be used as functional foods.

Nutrients in millets

Millets are miles ahead of rice, wheat and maize in terms of their mineral content. Finger millet has thirty times more Calcium than rice while every other millet has at least twice the amount of Calcium compared to rice. In their Iron content, proso millet and pearl millet are so rich that rice is nowhere in the race. While most of us seek a micronutrient supplement such as B-Complex vitamins in the form of pharmaceutical pills and capsules, millets offer it in abundant quantities. The much privileged rice, paradoxically, has zero quantity of this precious micronutrient. Except bajra and jowar all other millets has more fibre than rice, wheat and maize. Some even as much as fifty times that of rice.

Thus, nutrient to nutrient, every single millet is astonishingly superior to rice, wheat and maize and, therefore, is the solution for the malnutrition that affects a huge population of the India.

Table1: Nutrient Content of millets per 100 g (Gopalan et al., 1989)

Millets can be grown in resource poor agro-climatic zones

Most millets can be grown on poor and low fertility soils. Some in acidic soils, some on saline soils. Millets such as pearl millet can also be grown on sandy soils, as is raised in Rajasthan. In fact, finger millet grows well in saline soils. Barnyard millet too thrives in problem soils, where other crops like rice, struggle to grow in such soils. Many of them are also grown to reclaim soils. Poor farmers especially in dryland India are owners of very poor lands. Much of the cultivable fallows and low fertility farms have been handed to them through the process of land reforms and the Jajamani system of Inam lands. The only crops that sustain agriculture and food and nutritional security on these lands are millets. Indeed, the capacity of millets to grow on poor soils can be seen from the fact that they grow in Sahelian soil conditions in West Africa which produces 74% of all the millets grown in Africa and 28% of the world production. If they flourish in such ecological regions where average rainfall can be less than 500 mm using soils that are sandy and slightly acid, it is a testimony for their hardiness and extraordinary capacity to survive very harsh conditions. That is why millets can withstand drought like conditions in the Deccan and Rajasthan and produce food and fodder for people and livestock, respectively.

Millets do not demand agro chemicals and pesticides

Millets do not require chemical fertilizers. In fact, under dryland conditions, millets grow better in the absence of agro-chemicals. Therefore, most millet farmers grow them using organic inputs e.g., farmyard manure, vermicompost, panchagavya, amrit pani etc. produced in their backyard under purely eco-friendly conditions. In recent years farmers have also started using biofertilisers such as phosphate-solubilizing bacteria (PSB). These practices make millets production not only eco-friendly, but remain under the control of farmers, who have difficult access to inputs.

Growing local landraces under ecological conditions, most millets such as pearl millet, finger millet, and foxtail are relatively less subject to many pests and, hence, do not need much plant protection measures, like insecticides. However, cheap, safe, easily made organic protocols for seed and soil treatment will suffice even for potentially harmful infections. Moreover, even in storage conditions, millets such as foxtail not only not need any fumigants, but act as anti-pest agents to store delicate pulses such as greengram.

Millets are cropping system not just the crop

Millets grown under traditional practices as cropping system and not just a crop, itself is an highly acceptable practice, since most millet fields are inherently biodiverse. This has been the tradition of millets cultivation in the country, wherein, 6 to 20 crops are planted on the same space at the same time. The famous Baranaja cropping systems in the Himalayas are a testimony to this. In this millet led system are embedded upto 12 different crop varieties. Saat Dhan in Rajasthan also is a host to a large variety of millets. The Pannendu Pantalu system of the south India, grow millets in combination with pulses and oilseeds, thus making it a holistic cropping system.

Millets are climate resilient crops

Aforesaid qualities of millets remain our agricultural answer to the climate crisis that the world is facing. Climate change is expected to confront us with some challenges. Increase in atmospheric temperatures, increased water shortages concurrently yet ironically rising sea levels which may result in more saline lands), reduced crop yields and severe malnutrition.

Perhaps, only millets have the capacity to meet these challenges:

• Since they are capable of growing under dryland conditions, they can withstand with higher heat regimes.
• Millets grow in arid and semi-arid tracts under low rainfall conditions, in precipitation regimes of around 350 to 400 mm. Thus, they can face the water stress and grow.
• Millets are storehouse of nutrients in large quantities, which include major and micro nutrients needed by the human body. Hence, they can help people withstand malnutrition.

Rice and wheat can succeed for food security in India but millets have the huge potential to provide security of food, nutrition, fodder, fiber, health, livelihood and ecology. In view of all these qualities that they so amazingly combine, millets can only be called as Miracle Grains. Millet crops can aptly be called as ‘sustainable crops’ and thus this segment of crops may be rightly christened as ‘Low External Input Sustainable Agriculture (LEISA) crops’. Inclusion of millet crops in a concerted way in cropping systems, particularly in fragile ecosystems, is a virtuous move towards sustainability.