Millet Man of Telangana - The Success Story

                         Millet Man of Telangana-The Success Story

Mr. Veer Shetty Biradar (44) is from Gangapur village, Jharasangam Mandal, in Sangareddy district of Telangana State, India. He is a graduate and owns 13 acres of dryland and 5 acres of irrigated land. He grows sugarcane, chickpea, red gram, jowar, bajra, foxtail millet and finger millet. Once, while travelling to Maharashtra, Mr. Biradar could not get any food to eat and suffered from starvation as a result. He started thinking of producing food for the future generations after coming back from Maharashtra. He started growing millets and entered the field of value-added millet products under the technical guidance of Dr. C.L. Gowda, Deputy Director General, ICRISAT, and Dr. C.H. Ravindra Reddy, Director, MSSRF (M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation), Jeypore, Odisha. One of the reasons for focusing on value added millet products is the emergence of lifestyle diseases among the urban population and prevalence of junk food consumption among the youth. Keeping all these factors in mind, in 2009, Mr. Biradar started a value added centre for millets in Huda Colony, Chandanagar, Hyderabad, Telangana, India, in the name of SS Bhavani Foods Pvt. Ltd. Within a span of seven years, his company developed 60 value-added millet products from sorghum, bajra, foxtail millet and finger millet. The Millet Man of Telangana He takes up millets in June-July with the onset of the south-west monsoon. He manages to get a good yield from millets (foxtail millet 3-3.5 quintals/acre, bajra 4-5 quintals/acre, sorghum 4-5 quintals/ acre and finger millet 4-5 quintals/acre) with proper management practices at the right time even though his village receives meagre rainfall. According to Mr. Biradar, millets are super foods for the future generation because the risk of pest and disease attack is comparatively low, except for bird damage. He believes a farmer and a jawan are the two eyes of our country. Keeping the farmer in mind, he started a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) called Swayam Shakthi in Huda Colony, Chandanagar, Hyderabad. The NGO covers 1000 farmers from 8 villages from Sangareddy district. The main purpose of the NGO is to disseminate timely information to farmers and take new technologies to the doorstep of the farming community. Mr. Biradar received technical guidance about millet processing, types of machinery etc. from Indian Institute of Millets Research (IIMR), Hyderabad, Telangana. He also started working with an Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) project called FARMER FIRST in collaboration with IIMR. He started another value-added centre (shop) on February 27, 2017, to expand the coverage of millet-based value-added products. He also delivered a seminar on “Underutilized crops for nutritional security” at MSSRF, Jeypore, Odisha, followed by a field visit to educate farmers in Odisha. He believes all millet-based value-added products should be made available all the year round for everyone irrespective of the place. Mr. Biradar faced many challenges in his journey of developing milletbased value-added products and quotes the proverb “stones and sticks are thrown only at fruit-bearing trees” when remembering his journey. He earns Rs. 1 lakh per month from SS Bhavani Foods Pvt.Ltd.

Authors: Dr. Muttanna, Senior Research Fellow (SRF), Dr. Ravi Nandi, Program Manager FTF-ITT, Ms.Shakera Parveen, Program Executive, FTF-ITT, National Institute of Agricultural Extension Management (MANAGE) Rajendranagar, Hyderabad- 500030, Telangana State, India