Odisha should expand millet cultivation from 1.79 lakh hectares to 5 lakh hectares by 2047, with a production target of 8 lakh metric tonnes, Dr M. L. Jat, Secretary of India's Department of Agricultural Research and Education (DARE) and Director General of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), said at a two-day national event in Bhubaneswar.
The event, on agro-biodiversity conservation, climate-resilient agriculture and sustainable food systems, opened in the presence of Braj Mohan Ram, named by ICAR as Governor of Odisha; the state's Minister for Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare, Kanak Vardhan Singh Deo; Dr Soumya Swaminathan, chairperson of the M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation; and Sachin Ramachandra Jadhav, the state's Commissioner-cum-Secretary for agriculture and farmers' empowerment. Guests toured stalls of farm innovations, indigenous crop diversity and millet products and spoke with farmers.
Dr Jat said the Odisha Shree Anna Abhiyan, the state's millet mission, could become a national model for millet-led agricultural transformation. He praised the state's procurement of ragi (finger millet), which reached 7.5 lakh quintals in the Kharif Marketing Season 2024-25, against a target of 8 lakh quintals for 2025-26.
He stressed conserving indigenous millet diversity, in particular the 163 documented finger millet landraces, and promoting traditional varieties such as Kalia, Bati, Mami and Bharathi.
He called for closer research ties between the ICAR-Indian Institute of Millets Research (IIMR) in Hyderabad and the Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology (OUAT) to set up a Centre of Excellence on Millets at OUAT. He also urged wider use of scientific cultivation practices, promotion of minor millets such as suan and kangu, affordable processing machinery, stronger farmer producer organisations and women's self-help groups, and more millet enterprises and market links, with the support of ICAR-IIMR.
The organisers said the event aims to strengthen institutional partnerships and knowledge exchange and to speed Odisha's move towards sustainable, climate-resilient and economically viable millet farming. The release came from ICAR-IIMR in Hyderabad.
Photo: Kavali Chandrakanth KCK / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Source: ICAR
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