Why millets must be positioned as everyday swaps, not specialty grains

As the global food system confronts multiple tipping points—from climate change and soil degradation to the silent pandemics of diabetes and metabolic disorders—millets are making an unambiguous return.

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Once dismissed as coarse grains relegated to marginal soils and tribal kitchens, they are now reemerging at the crossroads of food security, nutrition, climate adaptation, and market reinvention. AgroSpectrum’s high-level webinar, “Popularizing Millets: The Next Chapter in Global Grain Innovation,” convened some of the world’s sharpest minds across science, policy, business, and civil society to address a critical question: now that the International Year of Millets has concluded, how can this momentum be institutionalized, scaled, and translated into enduring farmer prosperity and consumer trust?

Dr. Arabinda Kumar Padhee, Principal Secretary, Department of Agriculture and Farmers' Empowerment, Government of Odisha; Joanna Kane-Potaka, Founder and Executive Director of the Smart Food initiative and Strategic Advisor to APAARI; Dr. C. Tara Satyavathi, Director, ICAR-IIMR; Dr. Raj Kumar Bhandari, Member of National Millets Taskforce, NITI Aayog, Government of India; Shauravi Malik, Co-Founder, Wholsum Foods; and Agathe Diama, Senior Manager - Communication and Regional Information, Smart Food Coordinator, International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Bamako, Mali—each brought deep expertise and bold, grounded ideas. Their insights form not just a call to action, but a strategic blueprint to move millets from the fringes of subsidy-driven agriculture into the heart of self-sustaining food and nutrition systems globally.