Forgotten millet should solve India`s rice problem, `resistant to diverse climate`
Wednesday, 2024/01/03 | 08:22:13
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ICRISAT News
It is not nutritious, wastes scarce water and contributes to climate change. Yet rice is on the plates of most Indians every day. An age-old, but forgotten crop should provide a solution: millet. At India's initiative, the United Nations declared 2023 as the 'Year of Millet'.
Kuldeep Singh can endlessly list different varieties of millets. He heads a gene bank in southern India, where the seeds of tens of thousands of variations of all millet varieties are kept in cold storage. These were collected in 144 countries. The collection serves as an insurance policy for a future with climate change, unknown diseases and population growth. Singh beams when he talks about the qualities of millet. Logical replacementThe gene bank is part of the agricultural research institute for an arid and tropical climate, ICRISAT, which is working with India and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to promote millet worldwide. Dr. Jacqueline Hughes is the Director General.
Rice is also extremely vulnerable to climate change. Due to rising temperatures, seasonal fluctuations and extreme weather, production per hectare is declining. Rice production also contributes to climate change. It emits more methane gas than other crops. The Economist wrote earlier this year that rice production produces twelve percent of global methane gas emissions and one and a half percent of all greenhouse gases, which is comparable to the aviation sector.
In practice, it is quite a challenge to replace rice. Not just in India, but throughout Asia, where 90 percent of the world's rice is grown. This was also encouraged for decades. In India, rice is one of the main crops that is subsidized by the government and purchased with guaranteed minimum prices for the public distribution system. Since the last major agricultural revolution, rice has provided food security.
Rice alone is not very nutritious. Although hunger is almost non-existent, malnutrition is a major problem in India. Rice also contributes to the relatively common occurrence of diabetes in India.
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