New Delhi, Dec 6 (KNN) The year 2023 declared as International Year of Millets (IYoM) by the UNGA will provide a huge opportunity to the domestic farmers and exporters to popularize and expand India millets as well as its value added products across the global markets, said Piyush Goyal, Union Minister for Commerce & Industry.

Inaugurating a day long conclave ‘Millets-smart Nutritive Food’ a pre-launch event of the ‘International Year of Millets – 2023’ (IYoM-2023) on Monday he said the Indian industry should take India’s millets story global, approach newer markets, make them organic and sustainable, reduce the packaging size and see if they can be Geographical Indication (GI) tagged.

India produces 20 per cent of the global production at 16 million tones which is barely 5 per cent of India’s production.

“Millets will help resolve the global problem of malnutrition and take affordable food to parts of the world faced with food security issues besides being healthy,” he said.

The Minister further explained that they use less carbon to be produced, can also be an intermittent produce and millet hay works as fodder for animals.

Union Ministry of commerce & Industry through its apex agricultural export promotion body Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) is all set to promote the export of Indian millet worldwide.

The day long conclave ‘Millets -The smart Nutritive food’ a curtain raiser to the forthcoming International Year of Millets (IYoM) – 2023 declared by the United Nations has been organised to provide a platform for Business to Business(B2B) and Business to Government(B2G) meetings between International and National organizations, Exporter and start-ups to explore direct marketing and opportunities in Millets.  (KNN Bureau)