Millets . . . The Journey Continues

After, we moved on from NJH, we were quite at a loss to find out what we could do regarding the work we started with millets. At Kachhwa, we found out that there was no finger millet. However, there was quite a lot of pearl millet all around. And the interesting fact was that very similar to finger millet, the cultivation and use of pearl millet was also on the decline. 

On asking questions to the locals, we found out the following - 

1. It is easy to grow. It does not need much water. Which means that there is no additional investment for arranging irrigation facilities. 

2. Many knew that it was good for health. Very few knew that it was rich in Iron. 

3. Most of the traditional delicacies made out of pearl millet was long forgotten. Of note was the 'Bajri laddoo'. I'm still searching for someone who could make it for us. 

However, there were challenges - 

a. The cereal could not be kept for too long. One had to finish it within 6-8 months of harvest. 

b. If it was ground to flour, it could not be kept in the open for long.

c. There is a very negative feeling about the food item as it is commonly eaten by the poor. 

Well, it is harvest time now. It is not difficult to get the flour or the cereal. At 14 INR per kilogram, it is really cheap and like most of the other millets, it swells up as it is high in fibre and you need lesser volumes to quell your hunger. 

So, we tried out some recipes .. .. ..

Here are the snaps - - - 

Pearl Millet Cake

Bajra Idli

Bajra Dosai

Looking forward on how we can take this forward. Ideas are very much welcome . . . 

Tale of two fields

While Professor Haider from Birsa Agriculture University visited the fields in the target villages of NJH Community Health work, we got to witness a very telling fact about millet farming.

At Patna village, we got to meet a farmer who had sown 2 adjacent fields with finger millet and rice. Our staff had not noticed it. However, when Professor Haider visited the place, he pointed the obvious difference. It did not need any explanation.

The ragi field is on the right and the rice is on the left . . .

Prof. Haider and the rest of the team walking through the rice field. 

There was not even one panicle of grain in the rice field. It was in a sorry state of affairs with yellowish dwarfed slivers of leaves. The farmer told us that he had in fact given some amount of water to the rice field. However, it did not do any good. He had not tended the madwa field much. However, it was evident that he had a better than average finger millet crop.

He was happy to have tried finger-millet. He told us that he would have at least couple of sacks millet grain for the year. If he had put rice in both the fields, he would have lost everything.

Something was better than nothing.

I’m at anew place now. Here, finger millet is not much known. But, there are farmers who grow pearl millet (bajra). On interaction with patients from the nearby villages, it is very obvious that pearl millet farming is also on the way out. Farmers prefer to grow rice or wheat.

Bajra (pearl millet) at NJH. We had tried out a small plot this year and got a good yield

I’m sure it’s worth to look at the possibility of a program/project to promote pearl millet farming. Pearl millet also has many common features with finger millet, including the property of requiring less water than other crops. In addition, pearl millet is a rich source of Iron and maybe it could be the solution to Iron deficiency woes of the country.   

Revisiting the traditional

'In the olden days we never fell ill. We worked and worked hard. We did not feel the heat of the sun in the middle of summer nor the chill of the winter. Our elders lived to ripe old ages and our women were much healthier. We went walking to distant lands and would never get tired. We ate things we cultivated in our fields and drank the water from the streams which passed through our village'

This is a common refrain that I hear again and again in agrarian communities of different parts of the country . . . . Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra, Maharashtra, the North East and now Jharkhand. 

They continue - 'not anymore. Our young men do not like to work. In fact, they are not strong enough to work hard. They are tired always. They find it difficult to walk on foot to the next village. They prefer to sit chitchatting and day-dream. We cultivate new things in our fields about which we do not have much idea. Our water bodies are dry most of the time and when they are full, the water is polluted . . . And to top it all, we have diseases which we've never heard before . . .

If one has the time to listen, there are umpteen stories of change that a wizened old man in a village can narrate. 

Having served in the area of healthcare for the last 10 years, the major issues that seem to have changed the susceptibility of the population to poor health and diseases all point to malnutrition as the primary cause.

Many of us think about malnutrition as only a condition which occurs when there is a shortage of food. However, that is not the case. It means much more than that. Classically, it is defined as the condition that results from eating a diet in which certain nutrients are lacking, in excess or in the wrong proportions.

In almost all the rural areas that I visited, I was shocked to find out that in the olden days rice was only one of the options of the cereal in the diet and wheat was quite foreign in many regions especially in the south of the country. There were other choices which got wiped off with the advent of the green revolution. The green revolution guaranteed wiping off hunger and ushering in prosperity to farmers. 

We all thought that we had hit the goldmine. 

Not any more. The high prevalence of non-communicable diseases in the country points to a different story. The high calorie diets of rice and wheat based food brought in diseases such as diabetes and high blood pressure and also ensured that the we became deficient in micronutrients and vitamins. 

What exactly were the other choices of food which our forefathers had? 

In Tamil Nadu, they talk about the good old days when Thinai (foxtail millet) or Pani Varagu (proso millet) with milk were common diets. Village born and city bred folk talk about the 'kool and kali' made out from finger millet (ragi) and pearl millet (bajra/kambu). Come to the north of the country, and they talk about the Thopa Roti made out of finger millet (madwa), the Gundali rice (another local millets) of yore and the Kodo rice which ensured that hunger stayed far away. 

As I talked to scientists in this area, almost all of them expressed helplessness in ensuring that these grains remained in common use. However, there has been major breakthroughs in the cultivation and propagating the consumption of millet grains like finger millets (ragi/madwa). However, there are many other types of millets which are unique to certain parts of the country. Unfortunately, many millet varieties are on the verge of extinction. 

Why are they so precious to us? And there one would find the answer to the hardiness and the disease resistance that our forefathers possessed. High in vitamins and micro-nutrients, these millets are virtual store-houses of immunity. 

The table below is quite self-explanatory . . .

	Protein (gm)	Fibres (gm)	Minerals (gms)	Iron (mg)	Calcium (mg)
Rice	6.8	0.2	0.6	0.7	10
Wheat	11.8	1.2	1.5	5.3	41
Finger millet	7.3	3.6	2.7	3.9	344
Kodo	8.3	9	2.6	0.5	27
Pearl millet	10.6	1.3	2.3	16.9	38
Proso millet	12.5	2.2	1.9	0.8	14

And it is not surprising that millet based porridges like finger-millet porridge is much recommended as good weaning food for infants. 

Now, there is one more angle to the story of millets. And this is the nature of the crop to withstand drought and for the grain to resist pests. Which makes it all the more an answer to climate change and farmer distress. 

Summing it up . . .

- Millet crops are hardy and require less water. 

- They can be grown in low fertile soils.

- Millets grow better with biofertilizers.

- Most of the millets are pest-free. In traditional societies, they used to be used as used as anti-pest agents to store pulses etc. 

- Nutrient to nutrient, most of the millets are much superior to rice and wheat.  

I'm glad that Dabur has given an opportunity to put this write-up. I'm sure that millet based diet is going to play a major role in building a stronger, healthier and a more immune India.