TLI Staff
New Delhi: As the world gets ready to mark 2023 as the International Year of Millets, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday joined a lunch hosted in Parliament where tasty millet dishes were served.
“As we prepare to mark 2023 as the International Year of Millets, attended a sumptuous lunch in Parliament where millet dishes were served. Good to see participation from across party lines,” Modi tweeted.
Millets are food grains with high nutritional features and health benefits and are cultivated with minimal water and other inputs. They are cultivated across the country in various agro-ecological regions, having less infestation of pest and diseases and thus can be grown easily as organic crops.
Consequent to the initiative of the Government of India, the United Nations has declared the year 2023 as the International Year of Millets (IYOM).
The development is set to create both domestic and global demand and enhance exports from India. To give impetus to the export of potential products as well as to remove the bottlenecks in the supply chain of nutri cereals, the government through APEDA has created Nutri Cereals Export Promotion Forum.
The production of millets increased from 17.26 million tonne during 2019-20 to 18.02 million tonne in 2020-21.
Under National Food Security Mission (NFMS) programme, the NFSM-Nutri Cereals is being implemented in 212 districts of 14 states.
In order to facilitate the movement of the millets, the government has revised the guidelines for movement of the surplus production of millets to other states.