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Informist, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025

NEW DELHI – Experts have suggested the inclusion of millets in the public distribution system to alleviate the hidden economic and environmental costs of rice and wheat. The cost of producing a kilogram of rice or wheat is 1.6 or 1.3 times higher than millets, according to a study by the Tata–Cornell Institute and The International Crops Research Institute. 

Sourcing locally-grown millets and partly replacing rice and wheat with it in welfare schemes can ensure nutrition security and reduce food subsidies, it said. "Replacing 1 kilogram of rice with millets for 200 million PDS (public distribution system) beneficiaries would shrink the program's true cost by $1.37 billion each year," the study said. The study accounted for the hidden cost of greenhouse gas emissions and unsustainable water use. 

"Including millets in the PDS can help promote decentralized procurement of food grain by expanding procurement to states that do not grow a large share of rice and wheat," it added. The study also stressed how the huge leakage of foodgrains in the public distribution system can be checked through decentralised food procurement and digitisation. 

India lost 53,000 tonnes of foodgrain, worth INR 1.68 billion, in transit during Apr-Dec. So far, in 2024-25 (Apr-Mar), the government has lost 0.17% of the 30.8 million tonnes of foodgrains transported from surplus to deficit states, according to data by the Food Corp. of India. Transit losses majorly occur due to moisture and temperature variations, multiple handling, spillages, poor railway infrastructure, en-route theft, among others.

"Millets can reshape our food systems but only if we align policy, science, and action toward that goal," Prabhu Pingali, director of Tata-Cornell Institute, said in a statement. By integrating millets into the public distribution system the government can avoid the pitfalls of exclusivity in superfoods, the study said. End

Reported by Afra Abubacker

Edited by Namrata Rao

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