Procurement and Processing for Value Addition of Millets, Uttarakhand

Summary of the Initiative

Under the State Millet Mission and as per the directive from the State Department of Agriculture, Uttarakhand State Co-operative Federation Ltd. (UCF)has taken a target of procuring Finger Millet (Mandua) and MT Barnyard Millet (Jhingora) in addition to setting-up and installing a Multi Grain Processing facility for primary and secondary processing of traditional small millet varieties.

Situation before Initiative

The State of Uttarakhand is mainly a hilly State, 86% of the total area of the State is mountainous. Traditional crops such as Ramdana, Mandua, Jhingora etc., rich in nutrients and flavor, have been cultivated in remote villages of the State and have often failed to reach their mainstream markets. Due to the lack of any major state intervention, such crops have largely been ignored and entire farm to fork value chain remained undeveloped. Today, these crops have become very important as organic foods and super foods in food processing sector. Despite being produced in a large area of more than 1 lakh hectares, these crops have remained beyond the reach of the general consumer. Some of the main reasons responsible for these conditions are given in Below Image.

It has been envisioned that the State Co-operative department through its various interventions shall make efforts to promote such crops both at national and international level and thereby enabling doubling of farmers’ income.

Nature of Initiative

The project entails setting up of Collection Centres in each of the identified millet growing clusters in the State which shall serve as the transaction points for farmers and also provide minimal infrastructure for aggregation, assaying, weighing and bagging of the agricultural produce. Cooperative Department through their Multipurpose Primary Agricultural Cooperative Societies (MPACS) aids in procurement of such crops through their farmer members. Thereafter, the produce is transported to the multigrain processing unit for further storage, processing and onward market linkages, thereby giving double benefit to the farmers.

Supply chain development: To promote sustainable agriculture enterprise, the project envisions setting up a robust supply chain that provides infrastructure support, market linkages, logistics support, and ensures elimination of systematic barriers and that farmers get fair price for their produce. In case of millets there shall be buy back assurance by the way of an informal agreement where the farmers will voluntarily sell the produce to the Co-operative federation (UCF). The federation will also develop an extension team that will facilitate following quality inputs to the farmers through their Primary Input Cooperative Societies.

Purchase assurance from farmers: An assured buyback Scheme is proposed under the planned intervention to avoid distress due to price fluctuations. A mechanism under the administration of various MPACS would be setup whereby the potential production in each farm land can be estimated while providing input supply and extension services to each farmer. Crops thus procured shall be transported and stored at the UCF’s Project site located at Haldwani (Halduchaud) District, Nainital. A multigrain processing unit is also proposed to be set-up at the site for Primary and Secondary Processing of such crops.

Selection of collection centres: Procurement plan initiated in four districts namelyAlmora, Pithoragarh, Chamoli & Uttarkashi

Impact of the Initiative

Under the pilot project during 2021 UCF was able to procure a total of 131.2 MT of Finger Millets and Barnyard Millets. 

Procurement, selling and average selling price under the project

Source : State Missions and Initiatives to Promote Millets