Millet production and its scope for revival in India with special reference to Tamil Nadu

The millets belong to a group of small size food grains mainly grown around the world for food and fodder. Millets are cultivated as important staple food particularly in poor and semi-arid tropics of Asia and Africa. In this paper an attempt has been made to analyze the trend in area, production and yield of millets across the states including Tamil Nadu and to suggest suitable future strategies to revive these crops considering their economic value. In the country the cereals occupy 51 per cent of the gross cropped area. Within the area under total cereals, total coarse cereals constitute 14.20 per cent of the area. Among the coarse cereal crops, jowar and bajra are the predominant millet crops constituting about 60 per cent of the area. The area under coarse cereals was found declining ie from 41 (1980–85) to 26 Mha (2010–13) and thus resulting in decline in area of about 1.50 per cent per annum though a marginal gain in production has been achieved owing to increase in productivity levels. The trend in area, production and yield of the millet crops in Tamil Nadu would imply that barring barnyard millet all other millet crops suffered from decline in area and yield. Such loss in area was to the tune of 6 to 10 per cent every year and 4 to 8 per cent in case of yields. There is a need to formulate suitable strategies considering the economic value of the crops. Yield difference analysis indicates that there is significant difference in yield obtained by cultivating local and high yielding varieties; also it indicates inter-year differences in the yield achieved by cultivating either local or high yielding varieties.