Millets, Grains That Might Help Indian Farmers Fight Drought – And Improve Diets, Too : The Salt : NPR
▻http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/02/09/514171025/how-an-indian-state-is-putting-millets-back-on-people-s-plates
Now, after nearly four decades of intensive farming (and growing urban populations which use a lot of water), most of India is facing severe water crises. So, many states are trying to come up with a more sustainable way to farm. And Karnataka is leading the way with its efforts with millets.
There are many factors that make millets more sustainable as crops. Compare the amount of water needed to grow rice with that for millets. One rice plant requires nearly 2.5 times the amount of water required by a single millet plant of most varieties, according to the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid (ICRISAT), a global research organization helping to make millets more popular. That’s why millets are primarily grown in arid regions of Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Millets can also withstand higher temperatures. “Crops like rice and wheat cannot tolerate temperatures more than 38 degrees Centigrade (100.4 Fahrenheit), while millets can tolerate temperatures of more than 46 degrees C (115 F),” says S.K Gupta, the principal scientist at the pearl millet breeding program at ICRISAT. “They can also grow in saline soil.” Millets could therefore be an important solution for farmers grappling with climate change – sea level rise (which can cause soil salinity to increase), heat waves, droughts and floods.
#ah_la_la #riz #millet #résilience #eau #Inde #alimentation #climat