Amritsar celebrated 21st Millet Mahotsav

AMRITSAR: The Department of Food Processing, Punjab in collaboration with the Ministry of Food Processing Industries (MoFPI), Govt. of India through Punjab Agro organized a One-day Millet Mahotsav at Guru NanakBhawan, Guru Nanak Dev University (GNDU), Amritsar on September 5, 2023. This was 21st Millet Mahotsav in a series of 30 Millet Mahotsav being organized across all states in the country by MoFPIto commemorate 2023 as International Year of Millets.

The event was attended by over 700 participants including farmers, millet growers & processers, PMFME beneficiaries, academia, government officials, bankers, food processing industries association, agri-enterprises, food science & technology students of different institutions, millet research institutions. Over 30 micro & small enterprises show cased their food products made out of millets as well as other innovative products in the exhibition section of event. To make public aware about the millet products and its health benefits, millet recipe competition, millet poster making competition and millet quiz competition were organized.

Hon’ble Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Animal Husbandry, Fisheries & Dairy Development and Food Processing Minister, Punjab Sardar Gurmeet Singh Khudian inaugurated the Millet Fair-cum-Exhibition. Hon'ble Minister informed that in 1950s Punjab use to grow millets on over 27 lac acre which has gradually come down to 2500 acres, due to the impact of advent of green revolution in 1960s. He emphasized that in view of the present demand of millets in the state, some area could be added under millets cultivation. Once the demand of millets is consistent, more area could be brought under millets cultivation, so that farmers could keep getting remunerative return for their produce. He informed that his government is considering giving free millets kits to interested farmers. He emphasized the need to introduce customized millets based ready-to-eat/ready-to-cook food products to divert youth from eating junk food. Depending on the production of millets in the state, Punjab Agro shall set up a pilot project for farmers to get their produce processed at a nominal cost. Dr. B. Dayakar Rao, Principal Scientist, Indian Institute Millets Research, Hyderabad, the subject expert, informed that India is the 5th largest exporter of millets and Punjab farmers can contribute a lot in exports as they could get double the yield of millets with one irrigation. His institute has developed technologies to produce diversified products like millet pasta, millet poha, millet bread, millet cakes, millet cookies, millet dalia, etc. He informed that they have already supported six startups from Punjab manufacturing millet based innovative products. Millets is no more a poor man's food rather it is a premium food today. The Joint Secretary, MoFPI, Mr. Preet Pal Singh informed that the venturing into food processing is the next stage for Punjab after green revolution. There is a need to promote food parks to facilitate enterprises to set up food processing units. Dean (Academic Affairs), GNDU, Prof. Sarabjot Singh Behl informed that the University has all the pre-requisites viz. department of food, science & technology and department of agriculture and food incubation centerfor development of millet processing technologies. He offered to use their infrastructure to set up the proposed pilot project.

In the Technical Sessions, new recipes to produce millet based soft chapatis, sweet-dish, cookies, kheer, palow, energy bars, rusks, noodles, saviyan, namkeen, idli, dosa etc. were explained in detail. CIPHET and PAU, Ludhiana has pilot facilities to process millet into value added products by enterprises. Some regular user of millet products shared their experience about its health benefits including controlling diseases like blood pressure, diabetes, constipation, etc.