Palamu millet products suffer due to lack of interest among farmers

Daltonganj: Palamu looks to be a slow starter to the cultivation of millets. Though 2023 has been declared international year of the millets, there has been a tepid response from farmers towards the coarse grains.
Krishna Kumar, a farmer from Chainpur, said, "We fail to understand as to why we are asked every year to manipulate our farming. No farmer is sure of the commercial stake of the millets whether it will have its minimum support price like that of paddy or whether it will be procured like paddy by Palamu’s Food Corporation of India. This uncertainty of MSP, procurement and market act as a desisting factor for farmers in Palamu towards millets."
Another woman farmer said, "Farmers cultivate crop not only to eat round the year but also to earn money. We aren’t sure about the markets that we can get if we grow millets.”
Palamu district agricultural officer Dinesh Kumar Majhi said they are still awaiting millet seeds from the government. "We have been given an allotment of only 25 quintals of millet seeds.”
The sowing of millets is done in June and July only and delay in allotment of seeds may further hinder millet promotion campaign here, sources said.
There are only 1,000 hectares of land available for millet cultivation while for paddy, over 50,000 hectares of land is utilised. Majhi said, "The earmarked land is sufficient for millet cultivation considering the amount of seed alloted to us.”
However, another agriculture department official countered Majhi saying, "The allotment of 25 quintal of millet seeds is not sufficient to cover even 1,000 hectares of land as 20 to 25 kg of seeds is needed for cultivation of one hectare of land."
The price of millet seeds in market is Rs 81 per kg but with 50% government subsidy, a cultivator can get it at Rs 40.5 per kg, said officials.