Can millets ensure future food security in a warming world?

In March this year, the United Nations accepted India’s proposal to declare 2023 as the International Year of Millets. This coarse and ancient cereal has been recognized for its climate-resilient characteristics, the potential to solve global nutritional security challenges, and as a sustainable alternative to major cereals.

“Millets are a smart food: they are good for your health, good for the environment as they survive with less water and have a low-carbon footprint, and good for the farmer as they are more resilient and climate-smart,” Joanna Kane-Potaka, executive director at Smart Food, a global initiative working on diversifying staples, told Devex.

More than 90 million people in Africa and Asia depend on millets. In comparison, wheat, rice, and maize are staple foods for 4 billion people. These three major cereals provide 51% of the world’s calorie intake.

“Our aim is to reintroduce millets as staples in Asia and Africa,” Kane-Potaka said.

While millet advocates point to its many benefits such as nutrition and hardy characteristics, breaking the hierarchy of cereals that have dominated the market and our plates for decades isn't going to be easy. Millet does not benefit from subsidies, research, or investments that major crops do. Moreover, as was seen when superfoods like quinoa became popular, there are ethical considerations when foods that are largely consumed by marginalized communities in a local context suddenly find themselves in a mainstream, global market.

Subsidy-based food policies

Decades of policy and subsidy support by governments and international bodies have determined what dominates the food basket across the world. The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, the European Union, and 12 emerging economies give over $700 billion a year to the agricultural sector, which includes payments to producers, input subsidies, consumer support, infrastructure investment, and research and development.

“What the common man eats is decided by the government and should be seen in the context of food policies,” said Vilas Tonapi, director at the Indian Institute of Millet Research.

In most countries, these subsidies benefit the major cereals. The U.S. government, for instance, subsidizes maize, wheat, rice, cotton, and soybean. China was criticized by the World Trade Organization for unfair subsidies to rice and wheat growers in 2019. In India, to resolve crippling food shortages, the Green Revolution of the 1960s promoted and subsidized the cultivation of high-yielding rice and wheat over indigenous crops such as millets.  

The results aren’t surprising: global production of maize, wheat, and rice in 2019 stood at 1.17 billion tons, 764.49 million metric tons, and 495.78 million metric tons, respectively. In comparison, the production of sorghum, the most popular variety of millet, was just 57.97 million metric tons. Other varieties such as pearl millet, finger millet, browntop, foxtail, barnyard, teff, fonio, and proso accounted for far smaller shares.

Tonapi said, despite their abundance, the major cereals have failed us on nutritional security. He added: “Today, our bellies are full but we lack nutrition. Whether you are rich or poor, living in India or elsewhere, malnutrition and lifestyle diseases affect us all.”

Why Promote Millet?

Millets have been nicknamed “nutri-cereals” for their nutritional benefits, said Vijaya Raghavan, a leading expert on millet from McGill University in Canada. “People are waking up to the nutritional benefits of millets, and their ability to prevent lifestyle diseases.”

S. Anitha, a senior scientist working on nutrition at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-arid Tropics, or ICRISAT, shared insights from a four-year-long global study assessing the benefits of different millets with Devex. The results showed that millets lower the risk of developing Type-2 diabetes and overall cholesterol levels, and reduce iron deficiency anemia.

“All this provides a very strong case to bring millets back into the mainstream,” Anitha said. “The smart food approach aims to diversify staples with millets. Since staples are typically 70% of the plate, this change can have a big impact.”

Apart from nutrition, one of the key reasons that explain the interest of the U.N., countries in Asia and Africa, and scientists is the potential of millets as a crop for the future. Estimates by the World Meteorological Organization indicate there is a likelihood of temperatures increasing by 1.5 degrees Celsius, even if temporarily, within the next five years. An increase in temperature by even a degree can severely impact agriculture and the productivity of the major cereals, threatening the food security of billions of people.

“Millets are resilient to extreme conditions including high temperatures and drought. They can grow in the harshest, most arid regions,” said Rajeev K. Varshney, research director at ICRISAT’S Genetic Gains. 

Given the harsh agroecologies of a warming world, we need to move away from intensive cultivation of cereals such as rice, maize, and wheat, and diversify our farming systems to include inherently hardy crops, Varshney said.

As Tonapi puts it, “In the past, millets were a poor farmer’s insurance against the vagaries of the Indian monsoon. In the future, millets can be our insurance in times of climate change.” Currently, around 55% of millets are grown in arid regions of Africa, 40% in Asia, and 3% in Europe.

But is the millet production and supply chain robust enough to deliver if there’s a surge in demand?

The Road Blocks

Most millet varieties can be harvested within 60 days of sowing, which means a farmer can grow it at least two to three times a year. However, the yield is low compared to other crops. The lack of supply of quality seeds and poor output is one of the barriers to promoting millets.

“In India, the demand for millets has grown by 140% but the production is less than 50%,” Tonapi said. Institutes like IIMR and ICRISAT work toward providing quality seeds through governments and farmer producers organizations.  

“We also need investments in research on mechanization, cultivation practices, millet production, harvest technologies, value addition and food processing, and production of millet-based products,” said Raghavan.

Tonapi said that a farmer gets just 600 kilograms of millet per hectare with 400 millimeters of rain. Currently, the yield of rice in India is 2.7 metric tons per hectare and wheat is 3.5 metric tons. In China, this is 4.9 and 5.6 metric tons respectively.  

He added that with investments in input technology, such as high-quality seeds and irrigation, per hectare yield of small millets can reach 4.5 tons, and pearl millet and sorghum can touch 9 tons.

The question of ethics

There are also concerns about sustainability and ethics while promoting millets. For instance, after the International Year of Quinoa in 2013, the superfood became so popular and expensive that local Peruvian and Bolivian farmers, for whom quinoa is a staple, stopped eating it to benefit from the exports.

Similarly, health-conscious consumers in urban India are taking to millets, Varshney observed. As a result, millet prices are rising, making it beneficial for farmers to sell the grains rather than keep them for personal consumption. He added that while millets used to be a staple in rural areas, people’s food habits have changed with the availability of cheap wheat and rice.

According to Tonapi, the benefit of rising prices and improved yield can be passed on to the farmers and the poor if governments procure and distribute millets through their food schemes.

As Raghavan put it: “The people involved in the production and supply of millets should also benefit from it. Their life should be sustainable too.”

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