Exploiting millets in the search of food security: A mini review

Abstract

Climate change is negatively influencing agricultural production, and there is an urgent need for a rational and cost-effective technique like crop diversification to develop resilience into agrarian systems. For diversifying against the monoculture of conventional staples, the proposed crops shall have essential nutritional advantages and also higher income perks for the farmers. Millets are the better options for the crop diversification. In India, millets are traditionally cultivated from pre-historic occasions. Millets because of their higher resistance against biotic and abiotic stresses, they are sustainable towards the climate. Nutritionally, millets are gluten-free and are with a micro-nutrients profile better than of conventional cereals like rice and wheat. But, millets have faced lots of neglect within the Indian subcontinent because the population is obtaining much more conscious from the challenges of food security and climate change. New methods for millet processing are essential to revert the dietary habits in favour of millet-based diets along with more economical initiatives for the farmers taking up the millet cultivation. In this review article, author have discussed the three millets namely foxtail millet, proso millet and finger millet with the hope of popularizing their cultivation in the Indian subcontinent. We hope that the information provided in this review will help in the better understanding of the minor millets.