Schoolkids savour the trip to UoH’s Millet Utopia in Telangana

These programmes gave an enriching experience to the students and also made them realise the importance of millets in addressing food and nutritional security, the UoH officials said.
University of Hyderabad
University of Hyderabad

HYDERABAD: ‘Millet-Utopia’, an innovative programme organised by the University of Hyderabad (UoH) for schoolchildren evoked a good response. The students who are equipped with knowledge will now act as ambassadors of millets in the days to come.

As many as 830 students from 34 schools participated in the Millet-Utopia, after the conclusion of which the UoH distributed prizes to students on Sunday. As part of International Year of Millets 2023 celebrations, the UoH has been organising various programmes since October 2022. The Sunday’s mega event was organised by the UoH along with Indian National Young Academy of Sciences (INYAS), Delhi.
Responding to the overwhelming response, UoH vice-chancellor BJ Rao said: “These students will now serve as the ambassadors for millets”. He also urged the students to have millet-based meals at home.

National Institute of Plant Genome Research, Delhi senior scientist Manoj Prasad, principal scientist at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) Mani Vetriventham, Murdoch University, Australia professor Rajeeva Varshney and others spoke on the occasion. They highlighted the country’s contribution to millet genome sequencing, how genomics delivers improved crop varieties.

With the overwhelming response from schools, the UoH proposed to conduct this event annually in December. In the earlier programmes, the students from different schools participated in the debates and competitions on topics like ‘Millets to mitigate hidden hunger’ and ‘Can millets be food for the future?’ in the last three months.

These programmes gave an enriching experience to the students and also made them realise the importance of millets in addressing food and nutritional security, the UoH officials said.

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