Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Friday, June 26, 2026, called on the people of Uttarakhand to take pride in their traditional millets and announced that procurement of jhangora (barnyard millet) and sanwa (little millet) would be made available at the Minimum Support Price (MSP) currently applicable to ragi, signalling a potential expansion of the government's millet-support framework to lesser-known Himalayan grains.

Context

Posting in Hindi on X, the Minister addressed 'mere bhaion-bahnon' ('my brothers and sisters') of Uttarakhand and made a personal disclosure: 'Maine chawal khana chhod diya' — 'I have given up eating rice' — in favour of mandua (finger millet), which he now consumes daily alongside rotis. The statement was framed as a direct appeal to hill farmers and consumers to rediscover indigenous crops that he described as nutritionally superior.

Chouhan went on to say that jhangora and sanwa — grains grown on the rainfed, terraced slopes of the Himalayan hills — would be eligible for procurement at the MSP rate fixed for ragi, urging that 'such traditional grains and crops must also be saved.' The announcement, made via social media, carries the weight of his ministerial office even as a formal government order is yet to be confirmed.

Policy Backdrop

India's MSP mechanism for millets has historically been centred on ragi, with procurement operations running in states such as Karnataka, Odisha, and Tamil Nadu. Extending a similar price floor to jhangora and sanwa — crops that have no established central procurement history — would mark a meaningful widening of the scheme's geographic and crop coverage.

The policy push fits within a broader arc that gained momentum during 2023, when India spearheaded the International Year of Millets under a United Nations mandate, promoting production, consumption, and value-addition of coarse cereals. Successive administrations have sought to diversify cropping patterns away from the rice-wheat belt toward climate-resilient, nutrient-dense alternatives suited to marginal and rain-fed lands.

Millets have also been progressively incorporated into government nutrition programmes, including mid-day meal schemes and the public distribution system in select states, as part of efforts to link farmer income support with public health goals.

Stakeholders and Impact

Uttarakhand's hill farmers, who cultivate mandua, jhangora, and sanwa on small, terraced holdings largely outside the reach of irrigation infrastructure, stand to gain most directly if procurement at MSP rates is operationalised. These crops have faced steady decline as younger populations migrate to urban centres and as cheaper, subsidised rice and wheat displace traditional diets.

Nutritionists and food-security advocates have long argued that millets offer advantages over polished rice in terms of fibre, micronutrients, and glycaemic index — a case the Minister appeared to make personally by citing his own dietary shift. Wider MSP coverage could also incentivise organic and natural-farming practitioners in the hills, where chemical-input use is already low.

For state agencies and the Food Corporation of India, operationalising procurement of grains with thin, dispersed markets will require new logistics, storage protocols, and farmer registration drives — challenges that will test implementation capacity in a mountainous terrain.

What's Next

Attention will now turn to whether the 2026-27 marketing season sees formal state-level procurement orders for jhangora and sanwa, and whether the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) recommends a standalone MSP for these crops or pegs them formally to the ragi rate. Any revision of MSP rates ahead of the rabi procurement window will be closely watched by farmer organisations in Uttarakhand.

If the announcement translates into policy, it could set a precedent for other Himalayan and north-eastern states — such as Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim, and Manipur — where indigenous minor millets face similar market neglect, potentially reshaping India's millet-support architecture well beyond the traditional southern and central belt.