Bhubaneswar: Odisha is going to host an International Convention on Millet on 9-10 November at Janata Maidan, Bhubaneswar.
Chief Secretary Pradeep Jena, Development Commissioner, Anu Garg, Principal Secretary Agriculture and FE, Arbinda Kumar Padhee, Secretary, Mission Shakti, Sujata R Karthikeyan graced the State Level Steering Committee Meet held here on 6 September,
Director, Agriculture, Prem Chandra Chaudhary, Special Secretary, Home Santosh Bala and other officials participated in the discussion.
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik declared 10 November 2022 as Mandia Divas(Millet Day) with a view to promote millet production in Odisha and approved a plan of action for OMM-IYOM Framework, IYM Activities and holding of International Convention on 10 November, 2023.
The main objective of the conference is to increase the household consumption of millets, revalorization of millet food culture in urban and rural areas, conservation and promotion of millet landraces through seed system of landraces, promotion of post-harvest and primary processing enterprises , improving productivity of millets –based crop systems, promotion of value addition enterprises in rural and urban areas, inclusion of millets in PDS, ICDS, MDM, Welfare Hostels etc and facilitating the markets and exports of millet-based products.
The Chief Secretary stressed the need to focus on the latest research in the field of Millet production, farming practices, value added production and to ensure that the conference to be held will be of international standard.
Odisha Millets Mission is now expanded to 177 blocks covering 30 districts from 143 blocks in 19 districts. Odisha Cabinet chaired by Hon’ble Chief Minister has approved expansion of OMM from 2023-24 to 2026-27. Technology demonstrations were carried out in 79000 Ha in 2022-23 covering 1.72 Lakh farmers. For FY 2023-24, target is set for 1.5 Lakh Ha covering more than 2.2 Lakh farmers. 6.04 Lakh Qntls of Ragi was procured in FY 2022-23. Ragi procurement target has been set for 8 Lakh Qntl for FY 2023-24. 84 FPOs are empanelled as block level ragi procurement agency through TDCCOL in FY 2022-23. Odisha is also first State to initiate benchmarking exercise of little millet and foxtail millets for better marketing.
Odisha has been awarded as best performing millet promotion State award at the National Convention on Nutri Cereals in 2021 and as best State for scaling up millet mission in 2022 by the Ministry of Agriculture & FW (MoA&FW) and ICAR. Mint India identified OMM as one of the National best practices across India.
The MoA&FW and NITI Aayog identified OMM as one of the best models and asked different State governments to adopt the OMM approach. Government of India has set up a task force to understand the framework of Odisha Millets Mission and to revise the National submission on millets based on the learning of the OMM.
The international conference, to be organised in collaboration with various affiliates like FICCI alongwth multi stakeholders will have two days of interactive sessions, G2B and B2B meetings to discuss leadership and facilitation to promote Odisha Millet Mission and Millet Shakti. Through social media campaigns and strategic initiatives such as PR programmes, consumer demand for millets and value-added products produced in Odisha will be encouraged and developed.