India has positioned itself as the global champion of millets. From leading the International Year of Millets in 2023 to promoting “Shree Anna” in national campaigns, policymakers have rightly highlighted millets as nutritious, climate-resilient crops suited for a warming world. India alone accounts for nearly 38 per cent of global millet production, making it central to the future of these crops worldwide.
Yet beneath the celebration lies an uncomfortable reality: Indians are eating fewer millets than ever before. Recent study using nationally representative household consumption surveys shows that millet consumption has fallen dramatically over the last three decades. In rural India, annual per capita millet consumption declined from 25.1 kg in 1987-88 to just 3.4 kg in 2023-24 — a drop of nearly 86 per cent. Urban consumption also fell sharply from 9.6 kg to 2.3 kg during the same period. Millets have not only declined in absolute terms — they have nearly vanished from India’s cereal basket. In rural areas, the share of millets in total cereal consumption fell from 14.2 per cent to 2.3 per cent between 1987-88 and 2023-24. In urban India, the share declined from 7.1 per cent to 1.7 per cent.
Why has this happened?
The answer lies not in consumer ignorance alone, but in policy design. For decades, India’s food system has heavily favoured rice and wheat. Public procurement, irrigation investments, fertilizer support, and the Public Distribution System (PDS) made these cereals cheap, reliable, and widely available. When rice and wheat are subsidised at scale, households naturally substitute away from millets. Households’ everyday economics matters. If a family can buy subsidised rice for a fraction of market prices, millet becomes a difficult choice even when it is healthier.
The decline is especially striking among lower-income households, for whom millets were once an important staple. The expansion of subsidised cereal distribution has likely accelerated the replacement of millets in household diets. Economic growth has further reinforced this trend. As incomes rise, diets diversify towards dairy, fruits, fish & meats, and processed foods. Urban consumers also value convenience, branding, and ready-to-cook products — areas where rice and wheat dominate. Millets often require longer preparation time and remain poorly represented in mainstream retail markets. Millets also face weak value chains. Limited processing infrastructure, inconsistent retail availability, and patchy branding have kept them niche products in many cities. Even consumers who want to buy millets often struggle to find affordable, attractive options.
This matters because millets offer genuine advantages. They are rich in iron, calcium, fibre, and other micronutrients. They are drought tolerant, require fewer inputs, and are better suited to rain-fed regions facing climate stress. For dry-land farmers, millets can be both an economic and ecological asset. But reviving millets requires more than symbolic support or annual celebrations.
Even though minimum support prices (MSPs) for millets have risen faster than for rice and wheat in recent years, cultivation remains less remunerative in many areas because procurement is weak and markets are thin. The signal exists; the ecosystem does not. Farmers will grow millets sustainably only if consumers buy them consistently.
That means shifting policy attention from production alone to demand creation. Millets should be integrated more systematically into school meals, anganwadis, hospitals, and urban nutrition programmes. Private investment in millet snacks, breakfast cereals, bakery products, and ready-to-cook foods should be encouraged. Better branding and modern retail placement can help reposition millets from “coarse cereals” to aspirational healthy foods. Most importantly, cereal policy itself needs rebalancing. If rice and wheat continue to receive overwhelming support, millets will remain marginal despite official enthusiasm.
India has shown the world why millets matter. The next challenge is ensuring they matter again at home. A millet revolution will succeed not when we celebrate millets, but when we eat them.
Anjani and Vanshika are Senior Research Fellow and Research Analyst, respectively, at International Food Policy Research Institute, New Delhi. Smita is National Professor, at ICAR-National Institute of Agricultural Economics and Policy Research, New Delhi
Published on April 30, 2026