Odisha Becomes the First State in India to Release Farmer Varieties of Millets: Minister

Bhubaneswar, August 11:The Department of Agriculture & Farmers’ Empowerment of Government of Odisha has released four landraces of finger millet (ragi) under seed system. After the approval of Minister, Agriculture and Farmers’ Empowerment, Fisheries and Animal Resource Development, Ranendra Pratap Swain, the landraces/farmer varieties namely Kundra Bati, Laxmipur Kalia, Malyabanta Mami and Gupteswar Bharati shall be notified varieties for the districts of Koraput and Malkangiri for seed production and shall be sold for the purpose of agriculture.

Their production will be undertaken as per the process outlined in the SOP for Seed System for landraces. Initially released for Koraput and Malkangiri, it will be extended to other districts based on performance and acceptability of the community said by Swain. The Minister also said that Odisha Millet Mission (OMM) and IIMR shall jointly prepare a roadmap for national release of landraces.

Roadmap will be submitted to Department of Agriculture & Farmers’ Empowerment Welfare, Government of India. These four landraceswill also be tested in the 10 agroclimatic regions of Odisha.Odisha becomes the first state in the country to release landraces/farmer varieties of millet crop said Sri Swain.

These traditional varieties have adapted to the local situations. They have better tolerance to pest and climate changes. These traditionallandraces often perform better in organic farming conditions.

Gvernment of Odisha launched OMM in 2017 to revive millets in farm and plates. One of the objectives of OMM is conservation and promotion of indigenous landraces through seed system for landraces. Odisha is also home to 62 tribes. Tribal communities have a rich tradition of conserving local varieties of millets. Aworking group on seeds under OMM was constituted with eminent experts, agriculture scientists and grassroot seed conservators to develop such a process.

Through these process, 163 millet landraces were identified out of which, 14 landraces have shown very good performance. Out of 14 traditional varieties which have performed good in participatory varietal trial of ragi in different districts further shortlisting was done andfour varieties namely Bati, Mami, Kalia and Bharati performed well.

These four varieties undergone further purification and multi-location trial. After undertaking necessary trials, for the first time in the country, the Department of Agriculture & Farmers’ Empowerment of Government of Odishadeveloped a standard operating procedure for reproduction, evaluation and release of those traditional landraces through seed system for landraces under Odisha Millet Mission.

This was donein consultation with ICAR, OUAT, technical experts, field NGOs and most importantly custodian tribal farmers. In addition to standard scientific parameters such as yield, taste, climate resilience, pest resistance, culturalpreference and other work has considered during the developments of guidelines. For first time in the country, custodian women farmers were included as the members of varietal release committee.