Government of India (GoI) asks states to learn from Odisha Millet Mission (OMM) model

PostedonNov. 27, 2018in Food and Water

The National Mission on Nutri Cereals was launched during the National Workshop on Nutri Cereals at Pune on 28th September 2018. It was launched by Shri Radha Mohan Singh, Agriculture Minister, Government of India. The event saw representation from senior officials from many state governments. Apart from government representatives, agriculture experts, civil society organisations, entrepreneurs and farmers participated in the workshop. 

Dr Ashok Dalwai, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture Cooperation & Farmers Welfare and CEO National Rainfed Area Authority (NRAA), appreciated the work of OMM and requested all the states to adopt and learn from the OMM model for its emphasis on reviving millets in farms and on plates. He requested Government of Odisha to issue guidelines of the OMM, to be shared with other state governments. GoI will establishes a Centre of Excellence (CoE) on Millets under the leadership of IIMR at Odisha to support Odisha Millet Mission.

The Odisha Millet Mission is one of the flagship projects of WASSAN. WASSAN was involved with the mission right from programmer design, coordination, implementation (with partner NGOs) and management of the mission.

Dr Saurabh Garg IAS, Principal Secretary, Agriculture & Farmers Empowerment spoke about the initiatives of the Government of Odisha in reviving the millets.  He said it is unique programme that emerged from consultations between civil society (RRA Network & ASHA Network), Academia (NCDS) and Government of Odisha. The programme was also designed based on the successful grassroots experiences.

Dr M Muthukumar IAS, Director, Agriculture & Food Production, Odisha gave detailed presentation on the Odisha Millet Mission. He said that major objectives of the mission is to revive millets on farms and plates. It is one of the first agriculture initiatives whose primary objective is to increase local consumption instead of production. He said objectives of the OMM are

1.     Increasing consumption of millets in rural and urban areas
2.     Setting up decentralized processing units
3.     Improving productivity
4.     Better marketing for better price realization
5.     Inclusion of millets in ICDS, MDM and PDS.

Many promotional rallies, food festivals, and competitions were organized both in rural and urban areas to change the mindset of people around millets. Massive awareness campaigns were launched.

He said that Government of Odisha has already allocated 100 crores for procurement of millets. As Minimum Support Price(MSP) is there only for ragi in FY 2018-19, ragi will be procured through Tribal Development Co-operative Corporation (TDCC). An IT system has been set in place to ensure money is transferred to farmers within 3 days. An inter-departmental committee has been formed at secretary level and director level to track the progress on a fortnightly basis and farmer registration is in progress.

First published by Millet Mission

Story Tags: , , ,

Leave a Reply

Loading...
Hari Sankar Rout February 19, 2021 at 1:44 pm

Nice initiative