Economic Affairs, Vol. 65, No. 3, pp. 363-370, September 2020 DOI: 10.46852/0424-2513.3.2020.7 How to cite this article: Gowri, M.U. and Shivakumar, K.M. (2020). Millet Scenario in India. Economic Affairs, 65(3): 363-370. Source of Support: None; Conflict of Interest: None Millet Scenario in India M. Uma Gowri * and K.M. Shivakumar Department of Agricultural Economics, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India *Corresponding author: drmumagowri@gmail.com (ORCID ID: 0000-0002-9286-9031) Received: 10-04-2020 Revised: 20-07-2020 Accepted: 22-08-2020 ABSTRACT Millets have high nutritional qualities and produce well under marginal conditions but they are not used to the extent that is possible. It is a number of small-grained cereal grasses and based on the grain size, millets classifed as major millets and small grain millets. Major millets include sorghum and pearl millet whereas small grain millet includes fnger millet, foxtail millet, kodo millet, proso millet, barnyard millet and litle millet. Millets are rich in minerals and vitamins compared to rice and wheat; millets have the huge potential to provide security of food, nutrition, fodder, fber, health, livelihood and ecology. In view of all these qualities those they so amazingly combine, millets only be called as Miracle Grains/ Nutria-Cereals. Inclusion of millet crops in a concerted way in cropping systems and also particularly in fragile ecosystems, is a virtuous move towards sustainability. Also, importance in marketing and value addition improves the millet cultivation. In this connection, the present study was carried out to examine the scenario of millets in India from 1950-51 to 2018-19 and data were collected from ministry of economics and statistics, seasonal and crop report and analysed by using compound growth rate. The growth rate of millet area and production registered negative growth i.e., area and production declining at the rate of 16.31 per cent and 13.58 per cent per year respectively. In the same way productivity was declining up to 2005 afer that, it showed positive growth (3.23 per cent). Also, studied the economics of crops and observed that cost of cultivation for millet crops (sorghum and maize) compared to other important crops was lower i.e. Maize - ` 85915/ha, Sorghum - ` 47830/ha. In the same way, gross income realized by millet farmer was also low except maize crop. In India, the cost of cultivation was high in Tamil Nadu for most of the millet crop across the states due to the high human labour cost. Hence, there is a need to formulate suitable strategies considering the economic value of the crops. Therefore, the study came out with conclusion of proper cultivation practices, marketing and processing should be given to improve the millet production in India. Highlights m Scenario of millets in India shown an decreasing trend. m Compared to other states cost of cultivation for millets was higher due to high labour cost in Tamil Nadu. m Good sign of market price for milltes. Keywords: Trend, millet, area, production, yield, cost Millets are known as ancient nutritional grain and important food staples, particularly, in poor, semi- arid tropics of Asia and Africa (Mahendra, 2012 and Narloch et al. 2009) which are mostly cultivated under a variety of agro-ecological situations like plains, coast hills even diverse soil land varying rainfall. Millets are most popular in developing regions, like India and Africa, where food and nutritional security are the major challenges. The global millet production was estimated at 27.8 million ton (Mondal et al. 2016). India is the world’s leading producer of millets and has the largest global share of around 41 per cent followed by