Bhubaneswar: Odisha Millets Mission (OMM) aims not only to promote millets for its benefits but also for promoting equity & justice, said Principal Secretary of Agriculture Department, Dr. Arabinda Kumar Padhee, during a multi stakeholder workshop titled “Shaping the Sustainable Future of Odisha Millets Mission” organized by OMM in collaboration with University of York and Centre for Sustainable Agriculture (CSA) at Krushi Bhavan on Monday.
Padhee shared about the systems transformation, leadership approach and infrastructure support initiated through Odisha Millets Mission. It is driven by principles of equity and justice to rainfed upland farmers. He shared that Odisha is adopting whole of society and whole of government approach for mainstreaming millets. He welcomed the suggestions from the different stakeholders and said that OMM shall work on the suggestions emerged from the workshop and will continue to engage further with the diverse stakeholders.
The workshop was inaugurated by I/c Director Agriculture & Food Production, Rohit Lenka who highlighted potential of millets in addressing various health needs. He said that OMM, eagerly launched by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, is now being expanded across all districts by the Department.
An overview of Odisha Millets Mission was given by Joint Director of Agriculture, OMM, Sailendra Mohanty. This was followed by debriefing on the objectives of the workshop by Prof Sonal Chaudhury of University of York and Dr Ramanjaneyulu of CSA to the participants. They shared that key objectives of the workshop are to review current challenges across the millet mission supply chains for its sustainability, review best practices, indicators and frameworks for capturing sustainability performance of millet supply chains/ mission, define data, technology, governance and partnership needs for dynamic value co-creation for all stakeholders and propose innovative solutions (from policy to business models) for sustaining millet value chains.
Workshop was attended by representatives of Mission Shakti Department, Planning & Convergence Department, ST SC RTI, AIIMS, OUAT, ICAR-NRRI, ICAR-IIMR, ICAR-CIWA, Odisha State Biodiversity Board, Institute of Hotel Management, Executive Chef ITC, Chef Michel, BOCCA Café, Select Fresh and others. Workshop also saw the participation of farmers, FPOs and NGO partners.
After inauguration, participants were divided into two groups. Group one consisted of farmers, FPOs and NGO partners who shared their experiences on the implementation of the project activities. Farmers shared that before OMM, there was no awareness on different aspects of millet value chain and price of millet was very low. This led to demotivation to cultivate millets. But after OMM, there is a good price for millets due to procurement. In addition, there is increase in awareness on millets and there is slow change in diets.
Farmers also suggested that Rabi procurement of millets may also be taken up by the Government. WSHGs also shared that in addition of infrastructure, more skilling and exposure visits may also be taken up on the processing and value addition and bookkeeping. Mother kitchen facility may also be created for the WSHGs.
Toilet facility may also be provided near Kiosk locations by District Administration. WSHGs suggested that if Government takes up inclusion of millets in MDM, Hospitals, Army canteens, railways, airports, then it will create more market for the WSHGs. In addition, further standardisation of training and packaging may be taken up.
Group two consisted of the technical experts from different agencies. They shared the current research and development in different fields and deliberated on what new activities can be taken up under OMM. Key suggestions that emerged from the Group two were facilitating ecosystem of services through carbon markets, standardising the SOPs for private restaurants/companies/cafes/ entrepreneurs/products, setting up of incubation centre for rural startups, training farmers and farmer groups on diversified products and packaging, capacity building of FPOs to inculcate the professionalism for dealing with markets, framework for engagement with private players, undertaking a study of urban and rural markets from export point of view and documentation of indigenous knowledge systems may be taken up on mission mode.
This was followed by brainstorming session to set the indicators for the suggestions that emerged from the consultation such as ecological indicator, socio-economic indicators, socio-cultural factors, resilience and climate adaptation, market indicators and policy indicators. After due deliberations, summary of the suggestions was presented by Sonal Choudhury.
