Five classmates of a school here have come together with an initiative to popularise and revive the minor millets cultivation in the district by setting up a model plot and producing value-added edible products from the crop.
Though the minor millet varieties such as proso millet or ‘panivaragu’ as it is popularly known, little millet or ‘samai’ and kodo millet or ‘varagu’ are rich in dietary fibre, vitamin B, iron and calcium, and nutritious than many other cereals, its area coverage waned in the district over the decades due to various factors. Presently, the crop is cultivated in extremely tiny pockets.
In this scenario, the students from Frontline Academy Matriculation School in Tirupur, R. Aravind, S. Merwin, Suba Varshini, N. Gayathri and P. Tharanitharr decided to take up steps that could encourage farmers to take up cultivation on a large scale again by demonstrating new methods of cultivation and also create a demand for the produce in the market.
“Generating a customer demand for the produce is vital if more farmers have to take up the cultivation. For that, we have started popularising the preparation of value added products such as dosai, laddu and pakkoda among parents and people near our houses,” Aravind, the team leader, told The Hindu .
When contacted, Joint Director of Agriculture P. Santhanakrishnan too was of the view that consumer awareness needed to be increased if the crop cultivation should be put on the revival path.
“Many farmers migrated from the crop as remuneration from a unit area vis-a-vis many other edible crops is much less in the case of minor millets. But once, the demand at the end users’ level increase, more farmers will come back to take up the crop again,” he said.
Since high quality seeds were not available in the area, the students went to Tamil Nadu Agricultural University to raise the crop in the model plot set up on a farmer’s holding.
“We are disseminating the techniques for cultivation under rain-fed and irrigated conditions,” Suba Varshini said.
