Take India's millets story global: Piyush Goyal

Commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal on Monday asked industry to take India’s millets story global, approach newer markets, make them organic and sustainable, reduce the packaging size and see if they can be GI tagged.

“India produces 20% of the global production at 16 million tonnes which is barely 5% of India’s production,” Goyal said at the pre launch of the International Year of Millets.

The United Nations has designated 2023 as the 'International Year of Millets'.

Goyal said that 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.

Goyal said that 250 startups are being supported where Indian Institute of Millets Research is incubating startups on millets.

At the same event, commerce secretary Sunil Barthwal said that there is a huge export potential of millets.

“Currently, exports are $15 million but we are targeting $100 million exports from India. We can easily reach this target in 2-3 years…Value addition is about 5-10 times,” he said.

Barthwal said that the government has identified 16 international fairs where India’s millet producers would participate.