Hyderabad: NABARD organises millet conclave at ICAR-NAARM, Rajendranagar

The objective of the conclave was to bring the stakeholders across the whole millet value chain under one roof held at ICAR-NAARM, Rajendranagar

Hyderabad: A state level millet conclave to commemorate International Year of Millets was organised by city-based National Bank for Agriculture and Rural development (NABARD), Telangana regional office at ICAR-NAARM, Rajendranagar.

The objective of the conclave was to bring the stakeholders across the whole millet value chain under one roof. The total footfall for the event was more than 300 including senior dignitaries from technical institutes like ICAR-NAARM, ICAR-IIMR, ICRISAT, ICAR-CRIDA, PJTSAU, APEDA along with millet entrepreneurs, Farmers Producers Companies, SHGs in Telangana and startups.
Suseela Chinatala, CGM, NABARD in her welcome address informed that NABARD is organising such events across the country during the year 2023. In her address, she highlighted various NABARD’s interventions on millets being implemented across rural landscape of India.

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Dr. Ch Srinivasa Rao, Director, ICAR-NAARM during his presidential address lauded NABARD for curating such an important and relevant event during the International Year of Millets 2023, which will give boost for promotion of millet in State. He advised the farmers to come together in the farm of FPO to have better price for their produce. He stressed the importance of taking the millet to schools for increasing the consumption of minor millets.

Dr. C Tara Satyavathi, Director, IIMR addressed the issues in millet value chain and reiterated the importance of announcing MSP to the millet crops. She also highlighted the work done by IIMR in millet value chain and also in evolving high yielding varieties / hybrids of millets.

Dr. Praveen Rao, Former Vice Chancellor of PJTSAU has highlighted the importance of millet oriented lifestyle. He also indicated that popularisation of millets requires a multiple stakeholders to come together. He urged that the we need to take efforts to make these Climate Smart crops as income smart.

Dr. Venkata Ramana, Director (Research, PJTSAU) shared that millets production has been facing various hurdles for ages and encouraged farmers and the participants to grow millets.

The conclave also included technical sessions from eminent speakers who also launched a book on success stories of FPOs/SHGs supported by NABARD. Subsequently, NABARD felicitated millet farmers, FPOs and SHGs who have done good work in millet value chain. The attraction of the event was the exhibition of diverse millet products brought by farmers, FPOs, SHGs, start-ups, institutions like PJTSAU, IIMR, NAARM, ICRISAT, aIDEA, AgHub and entrepreneurs across the State. Millet lunch was served to all the participants.