"APEDA Working on Action Plan to Increase Exports of Millet in the Next 5 years," Dr. Tarun Bajaj

Dr. Tarun Bajaj, Director, APEDA, while addressing the industry stakeholder at the MILLETS: Power House of Nutrition Round Table Interactive Meet, held at PHD house on Monday deliberated on how the crop area under millet production has been shrinking but on the demand side, the market scenario for Millet is very positive.

APEDA is preparing a perspective action plan to increase the exports of Millet in the next five years, i.e., 2021 – 2026, and also to increase the export footprint from 50 – 100 countries in the coming years, said Bajaj.

Dr. Bajaj mentioned that APEDA is already working towards the development of strategies that will help increase overall agricultural exports to countries other than the top buyers.

He also spread some light on the countries which are importing Millet such as Indonesia, Belgium, Japan, Mexico, Italy, and Brazil and he mentioned that India is non-existent in these markets as we are yet to start our exports to these countries.

Minhaj Alam, IAS, Additional Secretary, MOFPI, congratulated PHDCCI for organizing an event on Millets and said that India yet needs to be well positioned in the Millet sector. Deliberating on the working of MOFPI towards encouraging the Millet producers all over India, Alam, mentioned that the PLI scheme will increase the usage of millets in food products and promote its value addition, along with throwing light on the various schemes of MOFPI and their implementation.

The Large Entity Scheme under PLI, gives sales-based incentives to the applicants having a minimum sale of all food products to Rs 250 crores and the MSMEs scheme under PLI gives incentives for having a minimum of Rs 2 crore sales, said Alam.

Pradeep Multani, President, PHDCCI, mentioned that India is the world's leader in the production of millets with a share of around 40% of the world’s total production. India produces about 16 million MT of millet annually. India is the 2nd largest exporter of Millet.

Millets exports from India have continuously increased at 12% CAGR in the last 3 years. The millets market is set to grow from its current market value of more than $9 billion to over $12 billion by 2025, added Multani.

Nand Kishore Aggarwal, Chair, Agribusiness Committee, PHDCCI, mentioned that Millet is known to be a poor man’s food. There are apprehensions about their use in the diet by urban people. Due to the stigma around them, their immense benefits remain unexplored in a malnourished nation like ours. A sustainable approach to providing the right to food for people worldwide is the need of the hour.

The year 2023 has been announced as the year Millets by Food and Agriculture Organization and the agribusiness and food processing committee at PHDCCI has undertaken the responsibility of leading this mission from the front, said Aggarwal.

Dr. Dayakar Rao, Principal Scientist, Indian Institute of Millet Research (IIMR), explained the six major varieties of Millets that are produced in India and also elaborated on the joint project between IIMR and APEDA which is dedicated to improving market and producer-related weaklings in the chain.