Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) Chairman Vijay Paul Sharma has said that providing the right incentive to farmers is extremely important for improving profitability and sustaining the millet mission, as farmers will only choose crops that are more profitable. He noted that the current profitability of millets is significantly lower than competing crops.
The minimum support price (MSP) of major millets has been increased quite significantly in the last seven or eight years. This has resulted in an increase in the market prices also, contributing to better farmer returns.
Addressing the valedictory of the Millet Stakeholders conference organised by the Nutrihub (an Indian Institute for Millets Research Body) on Thursday, he highlighted the crucial role of state-level intervention. Many States promoted millets in schemes like public distribution system and midday meals, he said.
He said the States needed to strengthen their procurement operations within their own States. If top producing States improve procurement, market prices would go up, which would then make millets a little more profitable to the farmers.
The CACP Chairman called for a three-pronged approach — leveraging technology across the production, processing, and consumption phases; strengthening institutions to connect producers and markets; and providing appropriate incentives for farmers to make millets more profitable.
To sustain the current momentum in the millets mission, he said the country should focus on the three key areas.
While the startup ecosystem is good in terms of numbers, with around 600 startups in this space, there is a need to look at the scalability of these startups. Addressing constraints such as improving access to finance and facilitating collective marketing or advertisement efforts would help in upscaling their operations and take advantage of economies of scale.
He said technology was major driver in promoting the millet mission and addressing challenges across the entire value chain.
“Technology is essential to address the challenge where supply has not been able to respond to emerging market demands. While demand is expanding much faster than supply, leading to unaffordability and high prices, technological interventions are necessary to take things forward,” he said.
“Promoting new technologies and ensuring the availability of existing high-yielding varieties and quality seed to farmers are seen as ways to improve the supply response. Millets are also noted as difficult crops in terms of production, which technology could potentially help address,” he said.
On the consumption side, technological interventions could potentially make consumption easier and help in understanding their benefits. “Millets are described as not being easy to cook, and their nutrition and values are not easily understood,” he said.
Published on May 16, 2025
Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) Chairman Vijay Paul Sharma has said that providing the right incentive to farmers is extremely important for improving profitability and sustaining the millet mission, as farmers will only choose crops that are more profitable. He noted that the current profitability of millets is significantly lower than competing crops.
The minimum support price (MSP) of major millets has been increased quite significantly in the last seven or eight years. This has resulted in an increase in the market prices also, contributing to better farmer returns.
Addressing the valedictory of the Millet Stakeholders conference organised by the Nutrihub (an Indian Institute for Millets Research Body) on Thursday, he highlighted the crucial role of state-level intervention. Many States promoted millets in schemes like public distribution system and midday meals, he said.
He said the States needed to strengthen their procurement operations within their own States. If top producing States improve procurement, market prices would go up, which would then make millets a little more profitable to the farmers.
The CACP Chairman called for a three-pronged approach — leveraging technology across the production, processing, and consumption phases; strengthening institutions to connect producers and markets; and providing appropriate incentives for farmers to make millets more profitable.
To sustain the current momentum in the millets mission, he said the country should focus on the three key areas.
While the startup ecosystem is good in terms of numbers, with around 600 startups in this space, there is a need to look at the scalability of these startups. Addressing constraints such as improving access to finance and facilitating collective marketing or advertisement efforts would help in upscaling their operations and take advantage of economies of scale.
He said technology was major driver in promoting the millet mission and addressing challenges across the entire value chain.
“Technology is essential to address the challenge where supply has not been able to respond to emerging market demands. While demand is expanding much faster than supply, leading to unaffordability and high prices, technological interventions are necessary to take things forward,” he said.
“Promoting new technologies and ensuring the availability of existing high-yielding varieties and quality seed to farmers are seen as ways to improve the supply response. Millets are also noted as difficult crops in terms of production, which technology could potentially help address,” he said.
On the consumption side, technological interventions could potentially make consumption easier and help in understanding their benefits. “Millets are described as not being easy to cook, and their nutrition and values are not easily understood,” he said.
Published on May 16, 2025
It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for ‘lorem ipsum’ will uncover many web sites still in their infancy.
It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for ‘lorem ipsum’ will uncover many web sites still in their infancy.
The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making
The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for ‘lorem ipsum’ will uncover many web sites still in their infancy.
It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution
Copyright BlazeThemes. 2023
