India’s millets push may feature at COP28

livemint.com:

Mint. “With all the work that we do, we are ensuring that we meet our scientific agenda whether applied research or development work. As part of it, we have an agenda for COP28 with 10 different initiatives, which will communicate to every theme that we have during COP28 and highlight the national and international SDGs," said Tarifa Alzaabi, deputy director general of ICBA.

The world is observing 2023 as the international millets year after the UN during its 75th session of General Assembly acknowledged India’s proposal to declare 2023 as International Year of Millets to create domestic and global demand and to provide nutritional food to people. IYM 2023 is being utilized as an opportunity to raise awareness of, and direct policy attention to the nutritional and health benefits of millets and their suitability for cultivation under adverse and changing climatic conditions. To use this opportunity further, “we have proposed ‘save the millets campaign’ for COP28 to gain global attention since it’s the international year of millets.

We have already launched the campaign which is aligned with our counterfort approach. Millets are not only nutritious in terms of protein and other minerals but also, they have a very low carbon footprint," Proposal Development Specialist of ICBA Nour El Jundi said. Food security including inclusion of millets to promote sustainability is being discussed globally at length as India and the UAE gear up to host G20 on 9-10 September in New Delhi and COP28 from 30 November to 12 December in Dubai, respectively.