Export performance and direction of trade of millets from India

Millets are a group of highly variable small seeded grains, widely grown around the world as cereal crops for nutritious human food and fodder for animals. Millets are important crops in the semi-arid tropics of Asia and Africa (especially in India and Nigeria), with 97 percent of millet production in developing countries. The current study intended to know the trends in export and direction of trade of selected millets in India from 2003-04 to 2021-22 and from 2012-13 to 2021-22 respectively. Among the millet crops, Sorghum, bajra and ragi were selected for the export dynamics study. Secondary data regarding export of millets and data on country wise exports was obtained from APEDA. Trend in exports is estimated using Compound Annual Growth Rate model. The exports millets were recorded higher CAGR of 23.93 percent during sexennial period I, where during sexennial period II and sexennial period III the CAGR was around -3 and -5 percent respectively. Which was reduced exports during the period. During the overall period was recorded -1.24 percent, which was varied during the latter years. The instability index in export of millets was estimated using Cuddy & Della Valle instability index. The CDVI during overall period recorded was 40.59 percent which was highly instable exports in the period. The dynamic nature of trade pattern of the millets was analyzed by employing first order Markov process. By TPM it was noticed that most loyal country which imports sorghum was UAE, UK for bajra and Nepal is major importer of ragi. Efforts should be taken to promote export of millets from India to explore and exploit potential of other markets and to avoid overdependency on few countries.