Karnataka Farmers lead Millet Revival in Southern India

The cultivation of declining traditional millet crops in Karnataka’s dryland tracts has been given a boost. The joint efforts of the Sahaja Samrudha Organization and local farmers including enterprising Eshwarappa Banakar, have resulted in the opening of the region's first seed bank specializing in millet strains. Eshwarappa has made a great start by collecting varieties of sorghum, finger millet, foxtail millet, proso millet and pearl millet seed as demand for the crops starts to increase. 

The millet's survival as one of the region's cultivated crops has been threatened by competition from cash crops including potato, sugarcane, cotton and cereals as well as its local reputation as a ‘food for the poor’ But the good news is that tastes are starting to change.

A Bioversity project Reintroducing Minor Millets to Karnataka funded by IFAD in the Kolli Hills of Tamil Nadu helped boost farmer income by working with local women to create millet snack recipes which would tempt urban taste buds and increase sales at the city markets. 
 
Local people are also starting to re-recognize the benefits of millet’s high nutrition content and its ability to cope in droughts as well as heavy rainfall. In this part of southern India, where dry land areas are being cultivated to cope increasing population demands, this attribute makes the crop more reliable as weather patterns change so is financially appealing to local farmers. 

For the full story, visit IPS news http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=51868. This story is part of a series of features on biodiversity by IPS, CGIAR/Bioversity International, IFEJ and UNEP/CBD, members of Communicators for Sustainable Development (http://www.complusalliance.org).