Recent advances in millet research and development: A comprehensive review for sustainable agricultural systems in India

Introduction

Global agriculture must feed a growing population under a changing climate while also tackling widespread malnutrition. Micronutrient deficiencies affect more than two billion people worldwide (Tulchinsky, 2010) [1] , and anaemia remains common among women of reproductive age in South and Southeast Asia (Sunuwar et al., 2020) [2] . Millets are small-seeded cereals that have been cultivated for over 10,000 years, mainly in the arid and semi-arid regions of Asia and Africa (Muskan et al., 2025) [3] . They combine tolerance of drought and heat with grain that is rich in minerals, fibre and bioactive compounds (Anal et al., 2024; Kheya et al., 2023) [4,5] . These attributes make them relevant well beyond their traditional homelands; proso millet, for example, is being evaluated as a low-input rotation crop in the Pacific Northwest of the United States (Habiyaremye et al., 2017) [6] . India, Niger and China together account for about 60% of global millet production (Muskan et al., 2025) [3] , and India is the largest single producer (Mohanan et al., 2025) [7] . Yet the area under millets in India fell by roughly 60% over the last seven decades, as procurement at guaranteed prices and subsidised public distribution favoured rice and wheat (Yadav et al., 2024) [8] . Interest revived after the Government of India designated millets as "nutri-cereals" in 2018 and the United Nations declared 2023 the International Year of Millets (Muskan et al., 2025; Sahoo et al., 2023) [3,9] . This review synthesises recent advances in millet production, nutrition, climate resilience, breeding, agronomy, policy and markets, using India as the central case while drawing on evidence from other millet-growing regions, and outlines priorities for future research and development.

Current status of millet production

Global trends

Millets are grown mainly by smallholder farmers in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa (Harish et al., 2024) [10] . Pearl millet, the sixth most important cereal after rice, wheat, maize, barley and sorghum, is grown on about 30 million ha in the arid and semi-arid tropics of Asia and Africa and accounts for almost half of global millet production (Satyavathi et al., 2021) [11] . Finger millet is a staple in eastern and southern Africa and South Asia (Maharajan et al., 2021) [12] , whereas foxtail and proso millets are important in East Asia (Kheya et al., 2023) [5] . In most traditional growing regions, millet area has contracted because of shifts toward higher-value crops, urbanisation and changing diets; at the same time, interest is rising in drier and non-traditional zones where millets are being tested as climate-resilient alternatives (Harish et al., 2024; Mukherjee et al., 2025) [10,13] .

The Indian scenario

India cultivates all major millet species across diverse agroclimatic zones, with pearl millet concentrated in the north-western arid states, finger millet in the southern and hill states, and sorghum in the central and southern Deccan (Yadav et al., 2024) [8] . Over seven decades, millet area declined by about 60% while productivity rose by about 200%, leaving total production broadly unchanged (Yadav et al., 2024) [8] . In pearl millet, hybrid breeding and periodic replacement of cultivars have delivered annual yield gains of about 4% over the last three decades (Yadav et al., 2021) [14] . The decline in area reflects policy incentives that favoured rice and wheat, changing consumer preferences, and weak processing and marketing infrastructure (Shah et al., 2023; Yadav et al., 2024) [15,8] . In the North Eastern Himalayan region, millets remain embedded in tribal food systems, but dietary change, cash crops and subsidised rice have reduced their cultivation (Majumdar et al., 2026) [16] . A three-year evaluation under organic management in this region found that finger, little and foxtail millets were the most productive (1.16-1.43 t ha -1 ), and that local finger millet landraces performed close to improved cultivars (Layek et al., 2023) [17] . Persistent constraints include erratic rainfall, soil degradation, labour shortages, pest pressure, and limited procurement, storage and producer-consumer linkages (Harish et al., 2024; Kheya et al., 2023) [10,5] .

Nutritional significance and health benefits

Nutritional composition

Millets are good sources of protein, dietary fibre, minerals, B vitamins and phytochemicals (Hassan et al., 2021) [18] . Finger millet is exceptional for calcium, containing about 364 ± 58 mg per 100 g across varieties, roughly three times the level in milk (Anitha et al., 2021) [19] and far more than rice, wheat or maize (Maharajan et al., 2021) [12] . A global systematic review reported mean protein contents of about 12 g per 100 g in proso and barnyard millets and high but highly variable iron and zinc concentrations across species and genotypes, underlining the need to select nutrient-dense varieties for nutrition programmes (Anitha et al., 2024) [20] . Millet starch and protein are digested more slowly than those of other cereals, which contributes to a lower glycaemic response (Annor et al., 2017) [21] , and phenolic acids, flavonoids and other antioxidants add further health-promoting properties (Jacob et al., 2024) [22] .

Health benefits

Regular millet consumption is associated with better glycaemic control, weight management and a lower risk of non-communicable diseases such as type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease (Bhattacharya, 2023; Jacob et al., 2024) [23,22] . A meta-analysis showed significant retention (about 23%) of calcium from finger millet-based diets in children, and reduced bone resorption in peri-and post-menopausal women (Anitha et al., 2021) [19] . Phytic acid, polyphenols and tannins can lower mineral bioavailability, although phytate also has antioxidant activity (Zhou et al., 1995) [24] . Soaking, germination, fermentation and other processing methods reduce these anti-nutrients and improve nutrient availability (Faizal et al., 2023) [25] .

Biofortification

Biofortification through breeding, agronomy and transgenic approaches offers a sustainable route to higher micronutrient intake (Kudapa et al., 2023; Vinoth et al., 2017) [26,27] . HarvestPlus and Indian public breeding programmes have released iron-dense pearl millet cultivars such as the variety Dhanashakti and hybrids such as HHB 299 and AHB 1200Fe, which combine high yield with grain iron above 70 ppm and zinc of about 35-40 ppm (Kudapa et al., 2023; Satyavathi et al., 2021) [26,11] . Agronomic biofortification complements breeding: in finger millet, foliar application of 0.5% ZnSO 4 •7H 2 O at flowering and 20 days after flowering raised grain zinc from 25-30 to about 40 µg g -1 , whereas soil application of 12.5 kg ha -1 ZnSO 4 •7H 2 O mainly increased grain yield (Nanja Reddy et al., 2025) [28] . Transgenic expression of zinc transporters and the identification of calcium transporter and sensor genes in finger millet open further options for nutritional enhancement (Maharajan et al., 2021; Vinoth et al., 2017) [12,27] . [29,11] . In pearl millet, a glutaredoxin gene (PgGRXC9) that regulates primary root growth has been linked to early drought tolerance (de la Fuente et al., 2024) [30] . Short crop duration and flexible sowing dates also allow millets to escape end-of-season drought (Babele et al., 2022) [31] . In India, sorghum yields are less sensitive than wheat yields to high maximum temperatures, and the seasonal water requirement of wheat is about 1.4 times that of sorghum (DeFries et al., 2023) [32] .

Climate resilience and sustainability

Drought and heat tolerance

Resource efficiency and climate risk

Replacing rice in each Indian district with the alternative cereal (maize, finger millet, pearl millet or sorghum) that has the lowest irrigation water footprint could cut irrigation demand by 33% while increasing iron production by 27% and zinc production by 13% (Davis et al., 2018) [33] . Because millets are grown without flooding and with few external inputs, they also avoid the methane emissions associated with paddy rice and have a smaller environmental footprint (Babele et al., 2022; Mukherjee et al., 2025) [31,13] . Millets are not immune to climate change, however: genomic analysis shows that some West African pearl millet populations are poorly adapted to projected climates, which calls for regional germplasm exchange and breeding for local adaptation (Haussmann et al., 2012; Rhoné et al., 2020) [34,35] .

Integration into sustainable farming systems

Millets fit well into organic and low-input systems, crop-livestock integration and diversified rotations (Babele et al., 2022; Kheya et al., 2023) [31,5] . In China, intercropping proso millet with legumes altered soil microbial communities and improved nitrogen assimilation and grain yield (Dang et al., 2020) [36] . In southern India, finger millet-pigeon pea intercropping combined with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria increased yield while reducing fertiliser input (Mathimaran et al., 2020) [37] .

Advances in breeding and genomics

Improved varieties with higher yield, disease resistance and better nutritional quality have been released for pearl millet and the small millets (Nagaraja et al., 2024; Vetriventhan et al., 2020) [38,39] . Pearl millet benefits from a stable cytoplasmic male sterility system and a strong hybrid breeding pipeline (Yadav et al., 2021) [14] . Reference genomes are now available for the major millets, and three near gapfree pearl millet genomes representing the global heterotic pool have recently been assembled, providing a framework for marker-assisted and genomic breeding (Ramu et al., 2023) [40] . Transcriptomic resources have identified genes and pathways underlying drought and heat tolerance and nutrient accumulation (Maharajan et al., 2024) [41] . Genome-wide association studies, genomic selection and speed breeding can shorten breeding cycles, and CRISPR/Cas genome editing allows precise trait improvement without lengthy backcrossing (Chen et al., 2019; Mukherjee et al., 2025) [42,13] . Nevertheless, the small millets still lack adequate genomic tools, efficient transformation systems and large breeding programmes (Nagaraja et al., 2024; Vetriventhan et al., 2020) [39] .

Agronomic innovations

Nutrient management

Integrated nutrient management, which combines organic manures, crop residues, biofertilisers and mineral fertilisers, increased crop yields by 1.3-66.5% across major cropping systems while improving soil health and reducing greenhouse gas emissions (Paramesh et al., 2023) [43] . In finger millet grown on calcareous soils in Bihar, India, GreenSeeker-guided site-specific nutrient management gave the highest grain yield (2,873 kg ha -1 ) and an agronomic nitrogen efficiency of 30.6 kg grain per kg N, outperforming even 125% of the recommended fertiliser dose (Pramanick et al., 2024) [44] . In pearl milletmustard and maize-wheat systems, supplying 75% of the recommended nitrogen together with a nano-urea spray reduced energy requirement by about 8-11% and increased energy-use efficiency by 6-9% compared with 100% nitrogen from prilled urea (Upadhyay et al., 2023) [45] .

Water and crop management

In-situ moisture conservation, mulching, conservation tillage and supplementary irrigation at critical growth stages improve water-use efficiency and yield stability in rainfed millets (El-Beltagi et al., 2022; Mukherjee et al., 2025) [46,13] . Intercropping spreads risk and raises land productivity; in Tamil Nadu, foxtail millet intercropped with vegetable cowpea gave foxtail millet grain-equivalent yields of up to 3,873 kg ha -1 (Aravind et al., 2023) [47] . Timely sowing, optimum plant population, integrated weed management and seed treatment remain low-cost practices with large effects on farm yields (Kheya et al., 2023) [5] .

Policy support and institutional initiatives

India's policy framework for millets includes the nutri-cereals component of the National Food Security Mission, the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana, minimum support prices (MSP) for pearl millet, finger millet and sorghum, and the inclusion of millets in the public distribution system and nutrition schemes (Gireesh et al., 2025) [48] . The ICAR-Indian Institute of Millets Research, Hyderabad, coordinates national research through the All India Coordinated Research Projects on pearl millet, sorghum and small millets (Nagaraja et al., 2024) [38] . The International Year of Millets 2023 raised global awareness, strengthened collaboration with international organisations such as ICRISAT and FAO, and promoted trade in millet products (Muskan et al., 2025; Sahoo et al., 2023) [3,9] . Nevertheless, public procurement of millets remains small compared with rice and wheat, which limits price assurance for farmers (Yadav et al., 2024) [8] .

Value chains and markets

Processing remains a key bottleneck. Small millets must be dehulled, traditional methods are laborious, and modern decorticators, mills and packaging are needed to improve quality and shelf life (Kheya et al., 2023; Mohanan et al., 2025) [5,7] . Ready-to-eat, bakery, snack and fermented products are expanding urban and export demand, including gluten-free markets (Mohanan et al., 2025; Muskan et al., 2025) [7, 3] . Millet entrepreneurs, however, report difficulties with raw-material supply, processing technology, consumer awareness and price competitiveness (Shah et al., 2023) [15] . Farmer producer organisations can aggregate produce, add value and improve price realisation for smallholders (Sangappa et al., 2023) [49] . Experience from Africa likewise shows that better seed systems, processing and market linkages are needed to expand finger millet production and use (Opole, 2019) [50] . [42,34] ; (ii) location-specific nutrient, water and pest management for sustainable intensification (Paramesh et al., 2023; Pramanick et al., 2024) [43,44] ; (iii) low-cost processing technologies that retain nutrients and reduce anti-nutrients (Faizal et al., 2023) [25] ; and (iv) consumer and market research to guide product development (Muskan et al., 2025) [3] . Policy should provide assured procurement at remunerative prices, wider MSP coverage, the inclusion of millets in public distribution and school and child feeding programmes, and investment in storage, processing and market linkages led by farmer producer organisations (Gireesh et al., 2025; Yadav et al., 2024) [48,8] . Because climate risks to millets cross national borders, international cooperation on germplasm, breeding and trade will be essential (Rhoné et al., 2020) [35] .

Future prospects and recommendations

Conclusion

Millets combine climate resilience, low input requirements and high nutritional value, which makes them strategic crops for sustainable and nutrition-sensitive food systems in India and worldwide. Advances in genomics, biofortification and agronomy have raised productivity, but the area under millets continues to lag because of weak procurement, processing and market support. Sustained investment in research, supportive policies and value-chain development can move millets from marginal to mainstream crops while conserving traditional knowledge and agrobiodiversity.

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