When did the United Nations General Assembly declare 2023 the International Year of Millets?

Long before rice and wheat filled most Indian plates, millets were grown and eaten across the country. Jowar, bajra and ragi are all millets, and India is still one of the world's major producers of them.

Millets have a lot in their favour. They are highly nutritious grains, and they can be grown with very little water and few other inputs. They also suffer less from pests and diseases than many crops, which means they can be grown easily as organic crops, without chemical sprays.

Because of these health benefits, the Government of India officially named millets "nutri-cereals" in April 2018. India then proposed to the United Nations that a whole year be given to celebrating them. The proposal was supported by seventy-two countries, and in March 2021 the United Nations General Assembly declared 2023 the International Year of Millets.

The aim was to make more people, in India and abroad, grow and eat these old grains again. In a country where water is growing scarcer in many places, a crop that asks for so little of it has an obvious appeal.