Millet Sisters, a non-governmental women’s farming organisation, has demanded the Union Government to make millets a heritage crop. Millets, the production of which has drastically reduced after the Green Revolution, provides food, nutrition, livelihood and ecological security in the climate-stressed times, said the organisation.
The Millet Sisters are a network of small-scale women farmers who grow bio-diverse millets in their farms. They met at Meghalaya for its first national meet on May 23 and 24.
The women farmers decided to demand for heritage crop status for millets as the crops sustain biodiversity. They also pointed out that women farmers were more benefited by growing millets than rice. In the Umiam declaration of Millet Sisters, the network has also demanded the government to include millets in the public distribution system (PDS). “Including millets in PDS will help India in not figuring in the list of malnutritioned countries,” the declaration read. The network has also demanded the government to include millet foods in Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) and mid-day meal schemes.
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Speaking at a media conference in the city on Thursday, the members of Millet Sisters, Telangana chapter, asked the government to help women collectives in setting up millet processing units. Setting up community-based procurement centres would help women access millet seed and farm produce, they pointed out.
Chinna Narasamma, a member of Millet Sisters and Community Media Trust, Telangana, asked the government to support millet farming under the National Rural Development Guarantee Scheme. The members urged the Indian Institute of Millet Research to focus on women’s knowledge on millet ecology. Speaking on the occasion, P.V. Satheesh, director of Deccan Development Society and national convenor of Millet Networks of India, demanded the State and the Centre to concede to the demands of Millet Sisters for a better ecologically-sustainable agricultural culture.