AARDO Concludes its International Millet Training Programme Successfully

Today’s training session was moderated by Prof. M Moni, Ex-DG of the National Informatics Centre (NIC) and Professor Emeritus at Shobhit Institute of Engineering and Technology addressing the participants from across African and Asian countries. He started the training programme by introducing Adeniran Ayodeji Bobby (Deputy Director, Federal Ministry of Agriculture Nigeria) to the audience.

Adeniran Ayodeji Bobby (Deputy Director, Federal Ministry of Agriculture Nigeria)gave a brief about his presentation entitled “Strategies to start up youths in the millet value chain.” He mentioned how every country is working on a road map towards shifting from forefront cereal crops such as rice, wheat, and sorghum to millet. And his presentation would help broaden our horizon on how Millet can be used to better the many rural dwellers through developing an effective/efficient value chain system.

He even emphasized proper strategies like youth farm settlement schemes to help identify and secure a reasonable hectarage of farmland in areas suitable for millet cultivation and many more such schemes. The millet value chain Program will create a minimum of 150,000 jobs in the next 5 years across the participating Countries. The millet Value Chain Program aims at revitalizing the sub-sector through processing and the improvement and introduction of novel foods.

He said support from AARDO will be very useful in providing consultancy services during workshops and conduct of studies based on the caliber of world-class personnel in the organization to guide the activities of the project in line with best practices in the world.

Later Prof. Moni reviewed the presentation summed up all the technical sessions from the 13^th to the 16^th and link it to the global perspective.

Dr. C.V. Ratnavathi (Director, ICAR- ICAR-Indian Institute of Millets Research Hyderabad, India) valedictory the millet program by saying she is delighted that due to International Millet Year ICAR-IIMR is regained not just within India but even internationally too. We are delighted to take you along with us on the journey of millet said Dr. Ratnavathi.

The program was concluded with the remarks of Rami Qtaishat, Assistant Secretary General of AARDO. He started “Agricultural lands with irrigation facilities have been exploited to the maximum, and hence we need to focus on dry lands to increase grain production further. An ever-growing global population needs sufficient and healthy food amidst climate emergencies and depleting natural resources. Millets can be part of the solution. Millets grains can survive harsh climate conditions, offering solutions to food scarcity.”

The vote of thanks was given by Kamal Dhameja (Technical officer AARDO) congratulating all the participants, dignitaries and Prof. Moni for being a part of this journey. And at last, he thanked Krishi Jagran for broadcasting the programme live and helping us reach the agri experts and scholars.