Constraints faced by tribals (FPOs) in cultivation, processing and marketing of millets in hilly areas of Andhra Pradesh: A policy perspective

Millets have been an integral part of diets in various regions including India for centuries, as they played a crucial role in providing sustenance to communities that promote cultural and traditional significance. In hilly and tribal areas, millets are major source of livelihood to farmers. Millets are climate resilient crops that can tolerate any kind of climatic conditions. Utilization of hilly tracts and tribal areas for cultivation of millets is need of the hour for long-term sustainability. To increase area under millets ICAR-IIMR formed Millet FPOs in tribal and hilly areas of Coastal Region of Andhra Pradesh. Three tribal FPOs (viz., Lambasingi, Sri Alluri and Sri Matsya Devatha) promoted by ICAR-IIMR, Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh were selected for this study. From each FPO 40 millet growers were selected randomly, thus making a total of 120 millet growers. A well framed interview schedule was used for collecting the data and Garette ranking technique was used for analyzing the data. Constraints faced by hilly tribal millet growers are categorized into cultivation, financial and marketing aspects. Poor information access on cultivation aspects to millet growers, lack of credit availability for establishing the millet primary processing unit and traditional processing methods were perceived as major cultivation, financial and marketing constrains by millet growers. Research institutes, extension wings, KVKs and other government institutions may provide suitable infrastructure facility to millet growers in tribal areas to create awareness on processing and value addition of millets in order to generate additional income.