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India takes millet buzz to SE Asia, organises 5-day fest in Jakarta

The inaugural session of the festival took place in the Kota Kasablanka Mall, a prominent shopping destination in South Jakarta, Indonesia.

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By Nirbhay Kumar

Jakarta: In a bid to popularise millets and expand the market for climate-friendly grains, the Indian Mission to ASEAN along with the Agriculture Ministry on Wednesday organised the ASEAN-India millet festival in the Indonesian capital. 

A number of start-ups, farmer-producer organisations (FPOs), exporters and millet entrepreneurs from India are participating in the five-day festival.

The festival is aimed at creating awareness about millets, also called Shree Anna, and presents it as a preferred food choice.

“The Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) participated in the ASEAN-India summit and East Asia summit on 7th September this year and one of the joint statements adopted was on food security, and look, in two months we are having Millet festival which also covers food security. That is how effectively our comprehensive strategic partnership is working,” said Jayant Khobragade, Ambassador of India to ASEAN in his opening remarks after the festival kicked off amid dance and music.

In his address, Arief Prasetyo Adi, Deputy of National Food Agency, Indonesia said the ASEAN -India Millet Festival has an opportunity to raise awareness about the benefits of millets, from nutritional status, and environmental sustainability to economic development. 

“Since millets are not a single crop and are a group of very diverse, different crops with a common characteristic they are sustainable for the climate, cultivators as well as consumers. So these can provide adequate quantities of nutrition in all areas across the world,” said Dr Maninder Kaur Dwivedi, Additional Secretary in the Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Government of India.

Besides millet entrepreneurs from India, several Indonesian firms also participated in the festival and displayed millet products at their stalls.

“In order to bring back millets to the plates, to the forefront of our diet, we need to brand them. We need to brand them so that it is easy to cook and good to eat. So, we want to capture the imagination of the younger generation that you can have pasta from millets, noodles from millets, you can have cakes from millets,” said Shubha Thakur, Joint Secretary (Crops), Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, India.

The inaugural session of the festival took place in the Kota Kasablanka Mall, a prominent shopping destination in South Jakarta, Indonesia. A Millet-centric exhibition is being held as part of the festival featuring participation from Millet-based FPOs, start-ups and Indian chefs.

Aligned with the International Year of Millets (IYM) celebrations, an aim of this festival is to raise awareness and create a market for millets and millets-based products among the ASEAN Member states i.e. Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Speaking to UNI, the FPO members participating in the Millet Fest said that they have received financial support from the Government of India by way of interest subvention. 

“We got 3% interest subvention besides financial support of Rs 15 lakh for managing the FPO. This year, we hope to clock a turnover of over Rs 5 crore. We also plan to start exporting various millet products and have completed all related documentation,” said Ankit Patel of Vaam Agro, a Gujarat-based FPO. 

Another FPO participant Dharmendra Kumar Maurya of Citiblock Farmer Producer Company said that the production of value-added millet products has helped him earn a good monthly income.

“We have a small unit which we set up by taking a Rs 5 Lakh loan. We are quite happy with the income we generate,” Maurya said. 

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