A three-day sales-cum-exhibition featuring a variety of nutritious grain crops — primarily millets — will be held on the district panchayat premises in Kakkanad from April 10 to 12.
The event offers an opportunity for health-conscious individuals to purchase a wide range of millet variants such as ragi, bajra, proso, foxtail, sorghum, barnyard, browntop, and kodo at discounts of 30 to 40 per cent.
Jointly organised by the panchayat and Organic Kerala Charitable Trust (OKCT), the exhibition is part of a sustained campaign to promote healthier dietary habits through the consumption of millets.
“Unhealthy food practices, a by-product of the rapid industrialisation and the fast-paced life, have been heavily contributing to deadly non-communicable disease load across the world,” notes M M Abbas, vice-president of OKCT.
“Kerala is not insulated, and has a high prevalence of conditions such as diabetes, hypertension and heart diseases.”
Citing figures from the directorate of health services, Abbas stresses that a healthy dietary change can curb lifestyle diseases, which account for 52 per cent of the deaths in the age group of 30 to 70 years.
Millets, he adds, should be part of the daily food intake. “While the consumption has gone up, especially in the form of ready-to-eat value-added products, the production of the crops in this region has hardly marked any rise,” he notes.
Currently, millets are cultivated in around 650 hectares by tribal communities in the Attapadi and Marayur regions of Idukki.
Ernakulam can do better, says M J Xavier, a board member of OKCT. “We’ve been providing the seeds for free to anyone who volunteers to cultivate millet. They should ready the land, a maximum of 50 cents, and register with the district panchayat,” he explains. “We will guide them and even buy the produce if it is grown organically.”
Notably, the district panchayat has also been championing the idea, hosting the Millet Fest since 2023, which was marked as the International Year of Millets.
“The upcoming exhibition is a continuation of such efforts. It will be open to the public from 10am to 7pm. Our officials will be there to guide the visitors,” says panchayat president Manoj Moothedan.