India becoming destination country for healthy foods like millets: Tomar
NEW DELHI: India is becoming the destination country for healthy food items like millets and the government is promoting biofortified varieties to address malnutrition, Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar on Sunday said as he participated in the G-20 agriculture meeting virtually.
Tomar said the United Nations (UN) has accepted India’s proposal and declared 2023 as the international year of millets and urged the G-20 nations to support the celebration of the millet year to promote nutrition and sustainable agriculture.
The G20 Agriculture Ministers’ Meeting is one of the ministerial meetings organised as part of the G20 Leaders Summit 2021 to be hosted by Italy in October.
“The Government of India has emphasised on re-introducing traditional food items including millet, other nutritious cereals, fruits and vegetables, fish, dairy and organic products in the diet of the people. Their production has been phenomenal in India in recent years and India is becoming a destination country for healthy food items,” an official statement quoted Tomar having said in his virtual address.
Tomar said biofortified varieties, which are the source of a staple diet rich in micro-nutrients, are being promoted to remove malnutrition.
About 17 such varieties of different crops have been developed and released for cultivation.