Body launched to help millet farmers

Coimbatore: With the United Nations declaring 2023 as the International Year of Millets, a group of industrialists came together and launched the Millet Chamber of Commerce and Industry in the city on Monday.
Addressing reporters at a city hotel on Avinashi Road on Monday, the chamber’s president Mano Solomon said the body would strive to bring small farmers, industries and traders in millets under its aegis.
“The millet farmers remain unorganised. They sometime use their produce as cattle feed when they fail to get a decent price in the market.”
D Manivel, president of the National Institute of Research in Commercial Agriculture, said the institute will work closely with the body to give hand-in-hand support to farmers’ produce organisations and the companies who are into millet production and supply. He said millet has a minimal shelf life and it needs to be marketed soon to avoid going to waste.
The chamber’s secretary K V Kathiravan was present.