Millets are a major staple crop in arid and semi-arid regions of India and Africa due to their climate resilience and adaptability. Yet limited investment in capacity building, business development and market linkages has historically impeded the development of millet enterprises. NRI is leading a research project to generate evidence on the impact of services and support aimed at promotion of millet enterprises through women's self-help groups (SHGs) in India.
An important and valuable food source, millets are nutritionally superior to other cereals with respect to protein, energy, vitamins and minerals. They have long been a highly nutritious staple crop for millions of farm households in India, particularly for poor rural communities. However, millets have been looked down upon as inferior or as a poor man’s food. This is partly due to the lack of effective postharvest technologies for processing and value-addition and limited knowledge and skills among the farming communities about processing technologies. Key impediments to women's participation in millet enterprise include socio-cultural, economic and technological constraints such as time consuming and labour-intensive postharvest operations and lack of market information.
To overcome some of these constraints, various schemes have provided drudgery-reducing equipment such as threshers and dehullers, training and financial capital. While there is considerable evidence on the effects of interventions that provide financial capital or training to women’s groups, there is little available evidence from interventions that provide enterprise development or support through product development and strengthening market linkages. The NRI-led Economic and Empowerment Impacts of Millet Enterprises by Women SHGs (E2IMPART) project is therefore generating evidence to fill this important gap.
Apurba Shee, Professor of Applied Economics at NRI, who leads the project said: “As 2023 has been declared the International Year of Millets by the United Nations, there has been global attention on the revival of millets to address the twin challenges of climate change and malnutrition. The evidence from this research project could play an instrumental role in shaping the global discourse around millets. We hope that the learnings from the project will enable Odisha Millet Mission (OMM) to further develop its strategy for improving targeting and scaling up millet enterprises through women’s collectives. It could also inform the development of other government initiatives that aim to improve rural livelihoods through women’s collectives”.
The project is currently being implemented in 10 blocks of Koraput district in the Eastern Indian state of Odisha. The aim is to measure the impact of interventions providing support and services related to women’s millet enterprises. The research is comparing participating households in three distinct groups or clusters of villages. These include one group receiving enterprise development training for millet processing (29 villages, 565 households), a second group receiving training in both enterprise development and value addition (29 villages, 565 households) and a third group receiving no intervention (28 villages, 549 households).
This study design is a cluster randomised control trial (RCT), with villages randomly allocated as part of a treatment cluster or as a control. Data is collected from individuals and households within the clusters. The team has conducted a baseline and a follow-up household survey and is currently evaluating the impact of the project on enterprise and women empowerment outcomes.
Partners and funders
E2IMPART is funded through the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie) under the Swashakt program supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. It is implemented in collaboration with Watershed Support Services and Activities Network (WASSAN) India, Nabakrushna Choudhury Centre for Development Studies (NCDS) India, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, India, University of Kent, Anglia Ruskin University, and various partner organisations in India.