The Hidden Side Of Millet Farming

In 2024, when independent food researcher and writer Shivani Unakar visited the Maan taluka in Satara, Maharashtra, she learned from local millet farmers that insufficient rainfall had delayed the germination of the jowar (sorghum) crop. “The farmers were very concerned. But towards the end of my trip, a heavy bout of rainfall lasted for two to three days. Although it saved the crop, the farmers later informed me that they could only get 60% of their regular harvest,” shares Unakar.

Unakar frequently interacts with millet farmers for her research and as the coordinator for the Pune-based Great State Aleworks’ Millet Beer Project. In addition to changing rainfall patterns, she has witnessed how farmers also struggle with labour issues and a lack of dedicated markets for their crops. She adds that these concerns are often not a part of the larger narratives that focus on these grains. “A lot of what we hear is that millets are great for nutrition, great for the land, for the soil and require very little water. But I am not sure if the average consumer understands the complexities behind the scenes,” she says.

Millets have been found to have a lower carbon footprint compared to major crops like rice and wheat. Depending on the variety, they also provide a range of benefits, such as drought tolerance, the ability to grow in saline and less fertile soils, and more disease resistance. Yet, as Unakar posits, documenting the on-ground challenges of growing millets and the impacts of climate variabilities on the crops is vital, as it will influence future growth trends for these grains.

Reducing millet cultivation

According to a 2023 news report, area under millet cultivation in Karnataka has reduced from 21 lakh hectares in 2017-18 to 16 lakh hectares in 2022-23, along with a decrease in production from 32 lakh tonnes to 21 lakh tonnes during the same period.

“About two decades ago, we were regular cultivators of little millet or samai. Around 2008, we stopped growing the crop because harvesting was very challenging and then processing the harvested grain was also difficult. Now, we only grow navane (foxtail millet) and ragi (finger millet), not as separate crops but mixed with maize (foxtail millet) along the borders of other crops. We get around two-three bags, which is sufficient for our use,” says Laxmi Lokur, a third generation farmer from Belgaum, Karnataka.

Owing to the small size of the grain, Lokur explains that isolating the little millet from all the debris such as crop residues, stones and other dust particles is a laborious task. “Traditionally, the older women in the family would perform the task of segregating the grain. Even if we use machinery, dehusking the millet still needed manual intervention, making it challenging to get labour for the post-harvest processes,” says Lokur.

The same challenge persists for other millet varieties too. While finger and pearl millet and sorghum are naked grains, others like foxtail, little, kodo, proso, barnyard and browntop millet have an outer husk that needs to be removed, making the post-harvest process more cumbersome.

According to a report by the independent think tank Observer Research Foundation, in the last five decades, India has lost 56% of its area under millet cultivation, but the overall production has increased from 11.3 to 16.9 million tonnes. This increase in production is attributed to the availability of robust technologies and the release of improved cultivars. While this may seem like an antithesis to the observations outlined above, these overarching numbers do not reveal the variations with respect to individual millets.

Additionally, a 2024 review article by researchers across institutions in India shares that between 1963 and 2020, the increase in productivity (kilogram/hectare) for both pearl millet and wheat is similar (about 244% for pearl millet and 271% increase for wheat). But, a lack of demand and policy support has reduced the cultivation of pearl millet, diverting the land for crops like cotton, maize and legumes. For sorghum, the overall productivity increase is less compared to other crops and millets, and production has also reduced from 9.1 million tonnes between 1963-67 to 4.36 million tonnes between 2015-20. The area under sorghum cultivation has also come down by more than 85%.

Activist, researcher and founder of The Millet Foundation, Dwijendra Nath Guru, explains that even at the nascent stage that the millet market is in, it has not received the kind of institutional, financial and policy support that other crops like paddy, wheat, maize and soybean were provided with during their promotional years. “The lack of established markets and processes are the primary concerns for farmers cultivating millets,” he explains.

Guru’s observations are also echoed in a 2024 report by the Tata-Cornell Institute which highlights that millet farmers on average receive profits of only 33% and 42% of what wheat and paddy farmers get for their crops. Additionally, the annual production costs for millets are also increasing at a rate of 1.2% per quintal of the grain, adding to the farmer’s woes.

In 2020, Mongabay India reported on how India’s attempts to increase millet cultivation have popularised a few millet candidates like the finger millet; although, the challenges of processing and the cost of cultivation were prevalent issues. Further, 2023 was declared the International Year of Millets by the Food and Agriculture Organisation and the United Nations, increasing global awareness about the grain. While this has led to a lot of value-addition and created excitement for millets in general, the need of the hour is infrastructural support for small and marginal farmers who mainly cultivate the crop, shares Arun Kaulige, the director and co-founder of Kaulige Foods Pvt. Ltd.

“There is a disconnect between the kind of millet-based products we see in the markets and the ongoing challenges of farming communities. Farmers need much more support; more mechanisation and equipment that should be available to them at their doorstep. Even if they can semi-process the grains, they would get a much better price for their crops,” adds Kaulige.

The climate factor

While the on-ground challenges are the primary deterrents for farmers to consider millets for their fields, a limited but growing body of research also points to the fact that these ‘climate-smart’ grains need some protection from climate variabilities.

In a 2024 report that examines the impacts of climate change on food production, Deputy Editor Hannah Ritchie of Our World in Data, explains that under conditions of increased carbon dioxide, higher temperatures and altered rainfall patterns, crops respond differently depending on type and location. For example, while increased atmospheric carbon dioxide increases the growth of crops like rice and wheat, the impact is much less on crops like millet and sorghum. These crops only benefit under water-stress conditions.

Similarly, a meta-analysis of several studies showed that when there is a 40-50% reduction in water availability, yield declines were much lower for crops like wheat when compared to millets and sorghum. Under water-logged conditions, yield declines for millets and sorghum were more, compared to wheat and maize.

Another 2020 study by the faculty members at the University of Delhi that looked at the impact of climate variabilities on sorghum and pearl millet cultivation between 1966 and 2011, showed that sorghum yields increased by three kilogram/hectare per 100 millimetre increase in rainfall while average yields fell by 45 kilogram/hectare per degree increase in temperatures. For pearl millet, temperature increases above 24.5°C negatively impacted yields. Analysis of a more recent data set (millet yields between 1991 and 2020) showed that a 1% increase in average annual temperatures led to a 3.06% decrease in millet yields.

Vincent Garin, a biostatistician at CIRAD (French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development), Montpellier, and former Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Hyderabad, explains that there is limited research on the impact of climate change on millets compared to more mainstream and economically profitable crops like wheat or maize.

Since millets are naturally resilient to harsher climatic conditions, they may be viewed as a response to climate change. “Stakeholders may assume that millets already serve as an effective adaptation strategy [to climate change], leading them to focus their efforts on crops with lower resilience to harsh environments. Additionally, studying climate change and crop adaptation is highly complex and requires sophisticated experiments, large and heterogeneous datasets, and advanced methodological tools to analyse data. As with many complex research areas, these efforts are more advanced in major crops with greater financial support,” explains Garin. “However, progress is also emerging in millet research, benefiting from advancements made in other crops.”

In his research, Garin used crop model simulations, agronomical and environmental data to analyse existing pearl millet cultivation areas in the country, classified into three zones based on rainfall and soil type and proposed new cultivation zones in East Rajasthan and Haryana, that are more suited to withstand climate variabilities.

Adapting to new seasons

Lokur adds that there have also been adaptations at the farm level, such as segregating areas for crops as changes in rainfall patterns are delaying harvests and subsequent sowing cycles. “Ragi and navane are cultivated in areas where we have no plans to sow a second crop. Even if there are rainfall delays, further cropping cycles are not impacted by them,” she says.

Ruth DeFries, professor of ecology and sustainable development at Columbia University and co-founding dean of the Columbia Climate School, New York, shares that not only are farmers well aware of the ecological  benefits of cultivating millets, they also know how to sustain these crops under various conditions. DeFries notes how indigenous farmers in central India cultivate millet varieties like kodo and small millets on sloping lands as too much rain can have a negative impact on these crops.

Mongabay India also reported on how farming communities in Koli Hills, Tamil Nadu, were cultivating shorter-duration millets to overcome the long, dry summer spells.

“The key for resilience to climate variability is diversity so that some crops can adapt. This is why conserving the genetic diversity in types and varieties of millets is crucial with seed banks and in-situ conservation,” says DeFries.

Guru adds that a monocropping approach to millets will pave the way for the same issues encountered with other major crops such as soil nutrition depletion and lack of biodiversity. He also makes a case for creating localised systems in the millet market: “To address some of the key concerns with millets, local buying mechanisms must be established by promoting local consumption rather than centralised procurement. Similarly, while looking at cultivation-related issues and seed varieties, we need to look at local varieties rather than promoting the bulk-produced institutional seeds.”

(Published under Creative Commons from Mongabay India. Read the original article here)