Can it be promoted to improve smallholders' income?

Kodo (finger millet) is traditionally grown in the hills and mountain areas of Nepal. It is one of such neglected grains that is superior than rice, wheat and maize in terms of its nutritional and medicinal qualities. It has been in the Nepali kitchen, especially in the hills and mountains for centuries. The foods prepared from kodo is also considered a relief food for diabetics and arthritis. However, it is considered a neglected crop and food of the poor and dalits. In the recent years, though due to sociocultural changes, rakshi is becoming one of the main drinks among so called high caste brahmins and kshetris. 

Rakshi is the distilled alcoholic drink in Nepal. It is commonly made from finger millet, locally called kodo in Nepali language. Rakshi can be prepared using other materials too such as rice, wheat, maize, fruits, barley etc. Other food items such as dhindo (dough), puwa, khole are also popular in those areas; however, rakshi, can be promoted for important cash income for the smallholder farmers. Instead of banning on the production, a regulation and value addition to the production and technology development for improved production rakshi for national and international market would be more profitable for the farmers as well.

Marginalization of millets

The following presentation was made as part of the panel presented at CASID Conference 2013 at the University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada, 3-6 June 2013.

http://www.casid-acedi.ca/conferences/annual_conference/2013_call_for_papers

Marginalization of millets: Impacts of labour out-migration on food security and wellbeing of smallholder farmers in rural India

Hom Gartaula, Kirit Patel, Derek Johnson and Dinesh Moghariya

It is evident that green revolution has proved a technological advancement in agriculture and contributed to global food security. However, the way it has impacted the semi-arid tribal rural areas is different than the areas where there is high potential for high-input commercial agriculture. One of the resulting effects of green revolution in such semi-arid rainfed areas is the increasing trend of labour out-migration. The paper aims to contribute to our understanding of contemporary rural India by exploring wellbeing of the smallholder farmers in fulfilling their role in the ecology of practice. The paper uses both qualitative and quantitative research methods. Primarily drawing from a household survey conducted among the 138 households from two sites in India (68 from Anchetty, Tamil Nadu and 70 from Semiliguda, Odisha), the study shows that wellbeing is correlated with location, migration status and millet growing status of the respondent households with varied degrees of association. It is revealed that small millets are one of the major crops grown in the semi-arid rainfed farming systems in India, but due to farmers’ increasing engagement with other non-farm and off-farm activities the incentive to grow this traditional and culturally important crop is decreasing. The increasing importance of diverse livelihood activities does not only change the existing ways of living, but it also gives rise to new pathways that does not necessarily embrace the traditional value systems, beliefs and mores. However, one has to be aware that it is a part of the wider process of sociocultural transformation and a means to the ecology of practice, which can go along with or without the aid of labour out-migration.

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