2023 to be huge opportunity for the Indian farmers and exporters to expand to global markets

The year 2023 declared as International Year of Millets (IYoM) by the United Nations’ General Assembly (UNGA) will provide a huge opportunity to the domestic farmers and exporters to popularize and expand India millets as well as its value added products  across the global markets.

″The Indian industry should take India’s millets story global, approach newer markets, make them organic and sustainable, reduce the packaging size and see if they can be Geographical Indication (GI)  tagged. India produces 20% of the global production at 16 million tones which is barely 5% of India’s production,″ said Mr Piyush Goyal, Union Minister for Commerce & Industry, consumer affairs, food and public distribution and textiles while inaugurating a day long conclave ‘Millets-smart Nutritive Food’ a pre-launch event of the ‘International Year of Millets – 2023’ (IYoM-2023).

″Millets will help resolve the global problem of malnutrition and take affordable food to parts of the world faced with food security issues. Besides being healthy, he said, they use less carbon to be produced, can also be an intermittent produce and millet hay works as fodder for animals. Union Ministry of commerce & Industry through its apex agricultural export promotion body Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) is all set to promote the export of Indian millet worldwide. The millets export promotion programme also comes at the backdrop of the proposal of India that was supported by 70 countries which lead to the United Nations’ General Assembly (UNGA) declaring 2023 as International Year of Millets (IYoM). ″ said Mr Piyush Goyal.

″ About 250 startups are being supported where Indian Institute of Millets Research is incubating startups on millets. The Indian Institute of Packaging could be roped in to innovate and improve the packaging of millets and millet products. ″ Mr Goyal said.

″APEDA  has done remarkable work to promote Indian millets worldwide and its efforts to further promote Indian millets will help to link India with international markets.″ He added.

″There is a huge export potential of millets, currently, Indian exports are $15 million but we are targeting $100 million exports from the country.. We can easily reach this target in 2-3 years…Value addition is about 5-10 times. Government has identified 16 international fairs where India’s millet producers would participate.″ Said Mr Sunil Bhartwal, Secretary, Union Ministry of commerce & Industry speaking on the occasion.

″Millets have been part of our food culture for ages , it is a traditional crop  and a low carbon food. It will soon become the food of the future due to its nutritional value . It is suited to low and marginal farmers with low inputs .  The Ministry of Agriculture is trying to generate awareness about this staple food and make availability of millets easily across the country as well as make it more affordable ″ said Mr Manoj Ahuja, Secretary, Ministry  and farmers welfare.

″The day long conclave ‘Millets -The smart Nutritive food’ a curtain raiser to the forthcoming International Year of Millets (IYoM) – 2023 declared by the United Nations has as been organised to provide a platform for Business to Business(B2B) and Business to Government(B2G) meetings between International and National organizations, Exporter and start-ups to explore direct marketing and opportunities in Millets.″ Said  Mr M Angamuthu, Chairman, Agriculture and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA)  

″The major highlights of the event was an exhibition of various Millet based value added products, B2B meeting followed by a Conference. Around 35 overseas companies from different countries participated. Exporters’ startups, FPOs and officials from Central and State Government Departments also participated in the event.″ Said Mr Angamuthu.

 ″To promote Millets globally APEDA plans to take an Indian delegation of exporters, start-ups and farmer-producer organisations (FPOs) to 17 major international events for the promotion of millets and its value-added products during 2023, which has been declared by the United Nations as International Year of Millets. This is a good opportunity to boost our exports as India has very distinctive traditional varieties of millets which are loved by health-conscious people. However, a lot of promotion is required for increasing shipments of value-added millet products,″ APEDA Chairman M Angamuthu added.

Major highlight of the conclave was an exhibition of Millet products organised by Trident Exhibitors on behalf of APEDA.

Those who were  present during the conclave included Dr M Balaji, Joint Secretary, Ministry of commerce, Dr Shashank Priya, Spl secretary, Ministry of commerce, L. Satya Sirinivas, Additional Secretary ministry of commerce, Mr Sushant Priya, Jt Secretary, Ministry of commerce and Mr Tarun Bajaj, Director, APEDA.