Odisha millet target: 5 lakh hectares by 2047, ICAR chief says

Odisha should grow millets on 5 lakh hectares by 2047, up from 1.79 lakh hectares now, and produce 8 lakh tonnes a year, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) Director General Mangi Lal Jat said in Bhubaneswar on Tuesday, 10 November 2026. He was giving the keynote address at a two-day national symposium on Shree Anna (the government's name for millets) and traditional seed systems, held in the presence of Odisha Governor Brajmohan Ram and the state's agriculture minister. The Governor urged young people, students and government employees to make millets part of their daily diet, saying these grains had been part of traditional food habits for centuries.

Millets are small-grained cereals such as finger millet (ragi), pearl millet (bajra) and sorghum (jowar). The Governor described them as part of traditional food habits for centuries, and linked their return to public health, farmers' incomes and the environment; the government's name for them, Shree Anna, reflects the same push. Those are the claims of the speakers; the symposium reports do not cite specific health studies, and this story makes no health claim of its own. For a heritage food to return to modern kitchens, though, there has to be enough of it, at a fair price, in forms people can cook easily. That is what an area and production target is about.

The seed part of the symposium matters as much as the numbers. A landrace is a local variety that farmers have selected and saved over generations, adapted to one area's soil, rain and taste. Odisha has documented 163 such finger millet landraces. If farmers stop growing them, the seeds are lost, and with them traits such as drought tolerance that plant breeders may need later. Conserving them keeps both a food tradition and a genetic resource alive.

The Governor's appeal links this to daily life. A larger area under millets helps farmers only if people buy and eat the grain, and school meals, canteens and households are where that demand comes from. The proposal to strengthen farmer producer organisations and women's self-help groups points to who could process and sell millet products, such as flour, flakes and snacks, closer to the farm.

Peepals calculation: the target means Odisha's millet area would grow about 2.8 times (5 ÷ 1.79 ≈ 2.79), an increase of 3.21 lakh hectares or about 179 per cent. Producing 8 lakh tonnes from 5 lakh hectares would need an average yield of 1.6 tonnes per hectare (8 ÷ 5 = 1.6). Our calculation from the reported figures.

Short-term: The symposium gives the state and ICAR scientists a shared target and a list of priorities: minor millets, seed conservation and a Centre of Excellence at the state agricultural university.

Long-term: If the area target is met, more of Odisha's farmland would grow climate-hardy grains, and more millet would be available for meals, school feeding and processed foods.

Who is affected: millet farmers in Odisha; women's self-help groups and farmer producer organisations; the Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology; and consumers looking for traditional grains.

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