Sri Satya Sai District (Erstwhile Anantapur) in Andhra Pradesh is the second most drought prone district in the country. Climate change has had many devastating consequences for the farmers in the area. Reduced agricultural yields, failed crops, loss of investment are yearly incidents for farmers in the region. Livelihood security & nutritional security continue to remain a constant challenge. During the present year, extreme weather conditions of unexpected, untimely and excessive rainfall due to repeated cyclones have also led to failed crops on a large scale. The only crops that have remained non-impacted by both the extremes are #Millets – the Miracle Indian Super Foods.  With water and climate crisis becoming apparent, agriculture needs to become more water efficient, sustainable & climate resistant. According to a 2018 study on Millets for Food Security in the Context of Climate Change, it was found that millets are amongst the few crops worldwide whose yield remains non impacted by climate change and which have the least impact on global warming.

SHODH’s Akshay Krishi project in Anantapur has been working with farmers in the area to encourage them to move to millet cultivation and provide support to them right from seed support, growing millets to post harvest management and market linkage for the same. In the present year, the project has successfully worked with more than 1200 small and marginal farmers and organised many of them into Farmer Producer Groups (FPGs). The farmers have started growing millets and have sold their produce directly to processors and other buyers this year.  

This project is closely related to SDGs 2 & 13 working towards combating the challenges of Zero Hunger and Climate Action.

Some of the key strategies followed as part of the project are:

1. Increasing Awareness on Climate Smart Crops and Agricultural Practices
2. Increasing awareness on health benefits of millets and popularizing local recipes
3. Millet Seed distribution and creation of seed banks
4. Technical Support & training on growing millets
5. Linkage to processing centres and buyers
6. Creating a sustained demand for millets in the urban areas
7. Over the past one and half years, the project has successfully reached out to ~10,000 millet farmers and linked them to markets and processing centres. We have also conducted local events on millet tasting and have been serving millet-based food to farmers in all farmer meetings.