Hamirpur (HP), Feb 6 (PTI) Growing and eating coarse grains are more convenient than wheat and rice and millet has high nutrition, which strengthens the body’s immunity, and also provides strength to fight diseases, said Nate Bloom, CEO of Sorghum, USA, During an interaction with the students of the Career Point University held under the International Decade of Millets Program 2024-34, Nate Bloom, Dr Satyen Yadav, President of India Millet Initiative, and his advisor held talks with them on Monday evening and Tuesday, a statement issued here said.
The central government has launched Shri Anna Yojana to promote millet in its budget. For this, Indo-US organisations like Sorghum United and India Millet Initiative have launched the International Millet Decade 2024-2034.
The year 2023 was celebrated as the International Year of Nutritious Cereals and under this programme awareness was spread among the people about coarse grains so that health can be improved by adding it to their diet.
Earlier, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed at Career Point University between Dr Satyen Yadav, Nate Bloom and Vice Chancellor of Career Point University, Hamirpur, Dr Sanjeev Sharma, to create opportunities to promote jowar and millet in value-added food, fuel and fiber applications for consumers.
Some of the common millets available in India include Ragi (finger millet), Jowar (sorghum), Small millet, Bajra (pearl millet) and Proso millet.
They are cultivated in about 131 countries and are a traditional food for about 600 million people in Asia and Africa. India, Nigeria and China are the largest producers of millet in the world.
Millet is also rich in calcium and magnesium. For example, ragi is known to be the richest source of calcium among all grains.
Millets provide nutritional security and act as a shield against nutritional deficiency especially among children and women, experts said.
The high iron content present in it is capable of preventing the high prevalence of anemia in women during the reproductive period and in infants in India, they added.
Millets thrive in poor soils with little or no external maintenance, consume less water and are able to grow even in areas with very low rainfall PTI COR BPL AS AS
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