Training Programme on Value Added Millet Recipes at Nutri Bakers Hub on 25.11.2025 by AICRP on Women In Agriculture

In the present century, climate change, water scarcity, food scarcity, ever booming world population, rising food prices and societal factors impact and threaten agriculture and nutrition security worldwide. The world is dealing with agrarian and nutritional challenges as agricultural lands with irrigation facilities has been exploited to maximum. The need of the hour is to focus on dry lands to further increase grain production for the exploding population and owing to low fertility of these dry lands, to produce sufficient grains can be a big challenge. The increasing pressures from erratic weather, soil erosion, biodiversity loss and from consumers' changing tastes in food and concerns about the production is necessitating to search for alternatives that are farmer and consumer friendly. The farming community is facing challenges from weeds, pests and diseases.It is here that millets which are climate-resilient crops adapt to wide range of ecological conditions requiring less irrigation with better growth and productivity in low nutrient input conditions depending minimally on artificial fertilizers and with less vulnerability to environmental stresses that need to be revived as health foods to enhance food and nutritional security. They contain high amounts of proteins, fibre, B-complex vitamins including niacin, thiamine and riboflavin, essential sulphur-containing amino acids like methionine, lecithin and little of vitamin E along with minerals like iron, magnesium, calcium and potassium also.Millets due to their nutritive value have potential health benefits to prevent cancers, decrease the occurrence of cardiovascular diseases, reduce tumor proliferation, lower blood pressure, risk of heart diseases, cholesterol content, rate of fat absorption, delayed gastric emptying and increased gastrointestinal bulk. Value-addition to millet grains as ready-to-eat and ready-to-cook items offers good opportunity to farmers for enhanced income generation, promotes production and marketing leading to nutritional security, employment and revenue generation. In this context, Nutri Bakers Hub under AICRP on Women in Agriculture’s FN component organized a training programme on value added millet recipes like ragi beetroot punch and baked ragi beetroot fingers. The women participants were detailed on the importance of drudgery reducing devices for enhanced productivity, income generation through tailoring activities and need for inculcating good manners among young children for them to become better citizens in future. The participants actively involved in the training programme organized by all the components of AICRP on Women in Agriculture, Rajendranagar, Hyderabad.