By Our Staff Reporter
Dehradun, 20 Mar: A meeting of the Regional Advisory Committee on ‘Development of Millet Value Chain’ was organised by NABARD, here, today.
The meeting was held under the chairmanship of Chief General Manager Vinod Kumar Bisht. Dr VVRC Purushottam, Secretary, Agriculture, Cooperation and Animal Husbandry, Uttarakhand, was present as the Chief Guest. The meeting was attended by various stakeholders including Arpan Kumar, Deputy Secretary, Food Supply, Dr BP Nautiyal, General Manager (Retd), Dr Lakshmi Kant, Director, Vivekanand Agricultural Research, Almora, Dr AK Sharma, Pantnagar University, Assistant Director, Vir Chandra Singh Garhwali University, Vinay Kumar, MD, Uttarakhand Organic Commodity Board, representatives of IIM Kashipur, Chairman, Uttarakhand Gramin Bank, SLBC Convener and representatives of the Agriculture, Horticulture, Industry, Mandi Board, Education Department, PHD Chamber, SLRM and various banks, representatives of Farmer Producer Organisation, progressive farmers and NABARD officials. Deputy General Manager Bhupendra Kumawat highlighted the objectives of forming the Regional Advisory Committee and said that the non-agricultural activities in the state have to be mapped according to their potential, and a participatory action plan will have to be prepared to overcome the obstacles like infrastructure, skills, finance, marketing etc.
Chief General Manager Bisht highlighted the characteristics of millets and the problems related to their production and said that this coarse grain, once called the food of the poor, has many nutritious properties much higher than other grains. It is easily produced in adaptation to climate change and low input costs and rain fed areas. The United Nations declared 2023 as the International Millet Year, due to which awareness has grown among the people on coarse grains. Highlighting the problems of declining area of millet sowing, low availability of high quality seeds, low availability of low FPOs being millet-based, processing, techniques, lack of marketing, crop damage by wild animals, etc., he said the problems could be solved together.
He also appreciated the separate MSP fixed by the state government for millets and said that agricultural universities, KVKs, research institutes and banks will have to come together to formulate a scheme which is short and long term to promote the state government millets programme. Highlighting the schemes of NABARD, he said that, if all the schemes of the state government and the central government are brought together and worked on in partnership, then it would prove to be a milestone.
Chief General Manager CS Murthi from NABARD, Head Office, said that everything is available in Uttarakhand, where there are two agricultural universities, research centres, agricultural practices like Barah Anaja, as such no one can stop it from moving forward in the field of millets.
Chief Guest Dr Purushottam said Uttarakhand is the third state in the country after Gujarat and Odisha to come up with the Millet Mission. The objective of the Millet Mission is marketing, processing, creation of infrastructure, making millet-based FPOs and creating awareness among farmers about millets. Uttarakhand is the first state in the country to include millets in the public distribution system. Due to this, the demand for Mandua will increase, benefiting the farmers.
Dr Sangpa of IIPM, Hyderabad, explained online the process of value addition in millets so that farmers can get a higher price. Other speakers focused on and discussed in depth the production, promotion, processing, supply chain, logistics, technical, scale of finance, etc. A pamphlet regarding millet was also released on the occasion. Dr Suman Kumar, General Manager, NABARD, proposed the vote of thanks.
