Millets for a sustainable future

Ghatak, A and Pierides, I and Singh, R K and Srivastava, R K and Varshney, R K and Prasad, M and Chaturvedi, P and Weckwerth, W (2025) Millets for a sustainable future. Journal of Experimental Botany (TSI), 76 (6). pp. 1534-1545. ISSN 0022-0957

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Abstract

Our current agricultural system faces a perfect storm—climate change, a burgeoning population, and unpredictable outbreaks such as COVID-19 which disrupt food production, particularly for vulnerable populations in developing countries. A paradigm shift in agriculture practices is needed to tackle these issues. One solution is the diversification of crop production. While ~56% of the plant-based protein stems from three major cereal crops (rice, wheat, and maize), underutilized crops such as millets, legumes, and other cereals are highly neglected by farmers and the research community. Millets are one of the most ancient and versatile orphan crops with attributes such as fast growing, high yielding, withstanding harsh environments, and rich in micronutrients such as iron and zinc, making them appealing to achieve agronomic sustainability. Here, we highlight the contribution of millet to agriculture and focus on the genetic diversity of millet, genomic resources, and next-generation omics and their applications under various stress conditions. Additionally, integrative omics technologies could identify and develop millets with desirable phenotypes having high agronomic value and mitigating climate change. We emphasize that biotechnological interventions, such as genome-wide association, genomic selection, genome editing, and artificial intelligence/machine learning, can improve and breed millets more effectively.

Item Type:	Article
Divisions:	Global Research Program - Accelerated Crop Improvement
CRP:	UNSPECIFIED
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Breeding, climate resilience, integrated omics, millets, multiomics, PANOMICS, stress tolerance, sustainable development goals
Subjects:	Mandate crops > Millets Others > Climate Resilient Technologies Others > Sustainable Development
Depositing User:	Mr Nagaraju T
Date Deposited:	18 Jun 2025 09:21
Last Modified:	18 Jun 2025 09:21
URI:	http://oar.icrisat.org/id/eprint/13171
Official URL:	https://academic.oup.com/jxb/article/76/6/1534/793...
Projects:	UNSPECIFIED
Funders:	UNSPECIFIED
Acknowledgement:	We apologize to those researchers whose relevant research and publications are not cited in this manuscript due to space limitation. Funding: AG is grateful to the Vienna Metabolomics Center (VIME) and the Grantham Foundation-funded project ‘Pipeline for Development and Commercialization of Biological Nitrification Inhibitors to Mitigate GHG Emissions from Cultivated Soils’. IP is grateful to the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) under grant agreement number I 5234.
Links:	Google Scholar

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