Millets for Food and Nutritional Security in the Context of Climate Resilient Agriculture: A Review

The world is dealing with both agrarian and nutritional issues. We must concentrate on dry lands in order to further increase grain production because agricultural lands with irrigation facilities have been fully utilised. It is difficult to use dry lands to produce enough high-quality grains because of their low fertility. Millets, a crop that complies with climate change regulations, outperform other grains like wheat and rice in terms of poor growing conditions and high nutritional value. Sustainable food systems aim to provide sufficient and nutritious food, while maximising climate resilience and minimizing resource demands as well as negative environmental impacts. We perform a series of optimizations to maximize nutrient production (i.e., protein and iron), minimize greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and re-source use (i.e., water and energy), or maximize resilience to climate extremes. We find that increasing the area under coarse cereals (i.e., millets, sorghum) improves nutritional supply (on average, +1% to+5% protein and +5% to +49% iron), increases climate resilience (1% to 13% fewer calories lost during an extreme dry year), and reduces GHGs (−2% to −13%) and demand for irrigation water (−3% to −21%) and energy (−2% to −12%) while maintaining calorie production and cropped area. The extent of these benefits partly depends on the feasibility of switching cropped area from rice to coarse cereals.

Climate-resilient millets are regarded as "Miracle Grains" because of their ability to adapt to a wide range of ecological conditions while using less water for irrigation and producing more effectively in low-nutrient soils. They exhibit little vulnerability to environmental stresses and only minimal demand for artificial fertilisers. Reviving interest in millet groups as nutritious foods that can improve food and nutritional security and reduce malnutrition is necessary. Two main groups of millets are great millets (Sorghum and Pearl millet) and Small millets (Finger millet, Foxtail millet, Little millet, Proso millet, Barnyard millet, Kodo millet and Brown top millet) classified based on the grain size. Both great and small millets have traditionally been the main components of the food basket of the poor people in India. India stands first in area of millets with 90.94 lakh Hectare followed by Niger with 69.99 lakh Hectare. Millets area of the entire world accounts for 312.44 lakh Hectare. India also stands first in production of millets with 115.6 lakh tonnes followed by Niger with 37.9 lakh tonnes. Millets Production of the entire world accounts for 284.59 lakh tonnes. Uzbekistan stands first in yield of millets with 7563 kg per ha followed by Switzerland with 4236 kg per Hectare, yield of the entire world accounts for 910 kg per ha (Food and Agricultural Organization, 2017).

Millets contain high amounts of proteins, fiber, niacin, thiamine and riboflavin, methionine, lecithin and little of vitamin E. They are rich in minerals like iron, magnesium, calcium and potassium also. Due to their nutritional value, millets may help prevent cancer, reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, stop the growth of tumours, lower blood pressure, lower the rate at which fat is absorbed, delay gastric emptying, and increase gastrointestinal bulk. Value-adding millet grains as ready-to-eat and ready-to-cook foods provides farmers with a good opportunity to increase income generation, promotes production, and fosters marketing, all of which lead to the creation of jobs, income, and nutritional security. However, the successful harvest of small millets justifies the incorporation of tried-and-true and climate-smart technologies for the satisfaction of the population's future needs. The review paper focused on all these aspects. Moreover, the research scope mentioned in the review paper implies future directions for enhancing millet-based agriculture viable in diversifying food baskets and achieving food and nutritional security in a hunger-free society.