Millets: The Eco-Friendly Superfood Revolutionizing Sustainable Food Systems

The small-seeded grains known as millet crops have been grown for many years in India. Millets belong to minor cereals in the grass family Poaceae. Millets are cereal crops grasses with small-seeded structures planted in diverse tropical and desert climates with the capacity to thrive in less rich soil. The millets are enrooted to becoming a worldwide phenomenon. The United Nations (U.N.) has decided to designate 2023 as the international year of millets, a resolution sponsored by India and supported by more than 70. Millets also called small millets are cultivated for their small kernels which are the products of small grassy plants belonging to the Poaceae family. The other name minor millets may indicate them to be minor crops yet are important for their nutritional values, medicinal benefits, feed for animals, and saviors during food crisis (Yenagi et al., 2010). The French word "mile," which means thousand, is where the word "millet" comes from, suggesting that a handful of millets contains thousands of grains. Millets are frequently cultivated on marginal or degraded fields with very low nutrient levels and in semi-arid environments with little rainfall. In regions where famine is a common occurrence, the crops provide a living for people, and in regions with little rainfall, millets provide a more consistent crop than other crops. Millets are small-seeded with different varieties such as pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum), finger millet (Eleusine coracana), kodo millet (Paspalum setaceum),proso millet (Penicum miliaceum), foxtail millet (Setaria italica), little millet (Panicum sumatrense), and barnyard millet(Echinochloa utilis).They are known as coarse cereals beside maize (Zea mays), sorghum(Sorghum bicolor), oats (Avena sativa), and barley (Hordeum vulgare). Millets are C4 plants with very superior photosynthetic efficiency, short duration, higher dry matter production capacity, and a high degree of tolerance to heat and drought. They also easily adapt to degraded saline, acidic and aluminum toxic soils (Yadav and Rai, 2013). These extraordinary characters of millets make them suitable crops to tackle the hurdles of climate change and formulate millet-based climate resilient technologies. Millets are not currently regarded as a single significant item in the North American and European food basket, but their value as a component of multigrain and gluten-free goods has been emphasized. However, millet is a staple crop in many African and Asian regions, and it is used to make a variety of traditional dishes and drinks, including porridges, bread (fermented or unfermented), and snack foods, particularly among the less affluent portions of their respective societies. The world's largest producer of millet is India. In 2020, the two millets grown in India, Pearl Millet (Bajra) and Sorghum (Jowar), would account for roughly 19% of global production. In 2020, India produced 40.51% of the world's pearl millet, followed by 8.09% of the millet produced by sorghum. Rajasthan, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, and Uttarakhand are the leading millets-producing states in India. Currently, these ten states collectively account for almost 98% of India's millet production in 2020–21.