Contribution of Millets in food and nutritional security to human being: Current status and future perspectives

Abstract

Globally food and nutrition insecurity remain a serious challenge however the situation is more sever to the groups of people living under marginal and disadvantaged society. The causes of food and nutrition insecurity are multifaceted and complex, and influenced by a range of factors including high poverty, natural resource degradation, climate change, low level of market development, uncertain food support, and inadequate policy and institutional support. Considering the acute shortage of food and nutrition facing by global population, strengthening food and nutritional security is crucial in order to feed the ever-growing world population. One of the promising approaches of promoting millets, which requires low external inputs, a novel candidate for nutrients and adapted to thrive in harsh and dry environment. These crops play an important role in global food and nutrition security, and may have potential to contribute to sustainable food systems under changing climatic conditions. Keeping in view the importance of the millets in diversifying diet as well as a source of rich nutrition, we conducted an analysis by reviewing the research articles/reports/books as well as online databases to identify the prospects of millets crops crucial for continuous supply of food and nutrition, traditionally managed genetic resources for future crop improvement and making agricultural system resilient under changing climatic conditions. Evidences suggested from the meta-analysis that as a product of generations of agricultural landrace, there are range of millet crops are rich in nutrients, resilient, and adapted to location specific agricultural environments. Such millet crops in the existing cropping systems could support diverse food systems and nutrient suppliers and represent a broad gene pool to improving crops with suitable genetic interventions in the future. The study advocates for advancement in genomics coupled with molecular breeding for improving the genetic potential of millet crops and open avenues for developing sustainable food systems. The study also emphasis on developing strategies and roadmap for future research engagement and a policy interface to facilitate conservation and management of traditional landraces and associated indigenous knowledge of cultivation and consumption while adopting sustainable production of millet crops under marginal environmental conditions.