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I ENDORSE
MILLETS |
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LOCATING ANSWERS FOR INDIA’S FOOD AND FARMING
CRISIS
A CRITICAL CALL FOR SUPPORT |
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Jowar, Bajra, Ragi, Kangni, Sawan, Kodo,
Kutki and many other types of millets have
been core to India’s food and farming
cultures.
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As against other food grains, millets
provide multiple securities of food,
fodder, health, nutrition, livelihood and
ecological.
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Millet cultivation has its roots in
non-irrigated and rainfed ecosystems which
are biodiverse and support rural
employment.
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A one acre millet farm supports 52 human
working days in one farming season.
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India is the top consumer of millets in
the world and Indians eat 42% of the
millets produced globally.
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Between 1966-2006, India lost 44% of
millet cultivation areas to other crops
due to lack of policy support and
political will.
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Each one of the millets such as sorghum [Jowar],
Pearl millet [Bajra], Foxtail millet [Kangni,Kheri],
Finger millet [Mandua/Ragi], Little millet
[Sawan] are three to five times more
nutritious than rice. However, millet
based farming never sought to replace
these.
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The millet in the North Eastern Region,
not only reveal a rich community knowledge
of biodiversity, but a rich diversity in
varieties of millet State after State,
which are not only significant as food
crops, but have cultural value. In the
Eastern Khasi Hille, ‘Kari’ a local millet
crop is of great significance even today,
and valued for its nutritive qualities.
Similarly in the hill districts of Manipur
Foxtail millet along with Finger millet is
of value. In Arunachal Pradesh along
Finger millet, Foxtail millet, Sorghum,
and local millet called ‘Akah Ku’ is of
significance for the communities. In
Nagaland, a sticky variety of Foxtail
millet is much preferred by the community
along with Job’s tears.
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India’s PDS completely ignores millets
which can support local production,
distribution and consumption and result in
huge savings to the state exchequer.
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24.17 million hectares of cultivable
fallows and current fallows can be brought
under millet cultivation, to produce 25
million tonnes of extra foodgrains and
enormous amounts of fodder and pulses.
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Dear
Madam/Sir
As you are well aware that in the current
background of an unprecedented drought and
looming climate change crisis, there is an
urgent need for a paradigm shift to shape the
food and farming futures of this country. If we
fail now, the coming decades will find us
desolate for food and enervated in farming. It
is in this context the Millet Network of India
[MINI] urges you to take a visionary position, a
position that will allow us to go beyond
temporary and knee jerk reactions to address the
food and farming crisis and address the root
causes that has today brought us to this
decisive edge.
The first step in this direction would be a
sincere attempt to relocate the solutions
outside the box of high resource input and
irrigated farming systems. This task might
require us to challenge a three decade
agricultural mindset and at the same time
rekindle our conviction in the ecological
agriculture that has been a heritage of Asian
farming systems. It is only then that we can
work towards a definite policy shift from a
total dependence on irrigation based farming
systems to a renewal of the non irrigated
rainfed indigenous farming systems which,
wherever they continue to be practiced, have
held the farming communities in good stead,
rescuing them from hunger and suicides.
It is these rainfed farming systems that are
home to millet based biodiverse farming and have
multiple advantages in relation to climate
change crisis:
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They automatically rescue agriculture from
being water dependent. As water grows scarcer
and scarcer in the years of climate change,
these farming systems put us on an excellent
state of readiness.
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Since these farming systems have embedded in
them a vigorous agro biodiversity which can
contribute to the carbon capture and such
other carbon sequestration processes, they
become the first defence against climate
change crisis.
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Millet based biodiverse cropping systems
liberates farming from water hungry crops such
as rice and wheat that need nearly six million
litres of water for one acre of cultivation
and makes farming less dependent on an
extremely valuable and finite resource such as
water.
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Millet based farming systems have the
potential to make agriculture non chemical
based, resulting in climate change compliant
systems, even while offering healthier, more
nutritious food and fodder, livelihood and
ecological security. Millets are a farming
system that is by nature community controlled
and fed by community knowledge systems.
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Some of the ready incentives that can be
offered to millet rainfed farmers are: climate
change bonus, biodiversity bonus, ecological
bonus. By saving on the current subsidies on
chemical fertilizers and power these bonuses
can be realized. This initiative can also
rescue farmers from their current desperate
reliance on high external input agriculture
and move them to low input organic and
biodiverse farming thereby finding a lasting
solution for the prevailing agrarian crisis
and farmer suicides.
WE
SEEK YOUR URGENT SUPPORT to fortify the
Indian food system and liberate the country from
the present stigma of being listed as the most
malnourished nation, [we occupy 128th position
in the global Human Development Index in terms
of nutrition status of our citizens, a position
that is lower than that of the sub Saharan
Africa]. Please bring back millets into the diet
of the Indian people.
For more information on millets and millet based
farming systems we are enclosing a briefing
document and a 21 minute film made by women
farmers of Deccan Andhra. We do hope you will
make it possible to view it.
We attach with this, call for support a Performa
seeking your endorsement to a set of clear
demands in favour of the revival of millet based
food and farming which is critical not just to
the nutritional security of Indians but also to
our food sovereignty.
We earnestly look forward to your support for
the revival and survival of India’s millet based
farming. |
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Sincerely
P. V. Satheesh
National Coordinator, Millet Network of India. |
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