Millets for a sustainable future

Author(s): Arindam Ghatak, Iro Pierides, Roshan Kumar Singh, Rakesh K Srivastava, Rajeev K Varshney, Manoj Prasad, Palak Chaturvedi, Wolfram Weckwerth
Abstract: Our current agricultural system faces a perfect storm-climate change, burgeoning population, and unpredictable outbreaks like COVID-19 disrupt food production, particularly for vulnerable populations in developing countries. A paradigm shift in agriculture practices is needed to tackle these issues. One solution is the diversification of crop production. While ~56% of the protein consumed from plants stems from three major cereal crops (rice, wheat and maize), underutilized crops such as millets, legumes and other cereals are highly neglected by farmers and the research community. Millets are one of the most ancient and versatile orphan crops with attributes like fast-growing, high-yielding, withstanding harsh environments, and rich in micronutrients such as iron and zinc, making them appealing to achieve agronomic sustainability. Here, we highlight the contribution of millet to agriculture and pay attention to the latest research on the genetic diversity of millet, genomic resources, and next-generation omics and their applications under various stress conditions. Additionally, integrative omics technologies could identify and develop millets with desirable phenotypes having high agronomic value and mitigating climate change. Here, we emphasize that biotechnological interventions, such as genome-wide association, genomic selection, genome editing, and artificial intelligence/machine learning, can improve and breed millets more effectively.
Organisation(s): Functional and Evolutionary Ecology
External organisation(s): Mahishadal Raj College, International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) India, Murdoch University, University of Delhi
Journal: Journal of Experimental Botany
ISSN: 0022-0957
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/jxb/erae507
Publication date: 12-2024
Peer reviewed: Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012: 106022 Microbiology, 405001 Agroecology
Keywords
Sustainable Development Goals: SDG 2 - Zero Hunger, SDG 13 - Climate Action
Portal url: https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/b30a8bae-826a-44c3-8df9-f916f451ba06