Why farmers will be turning toward millets in 2026?

Across North India, 2026 is beginning to look less like a routine Kharif season and more like a structural turning point in crop choice. Although the United Nations declared 2023 as the International Year of Millets, the actual breakthrough may be happening now, because the push toward millets is no longer being driven only by health campaigns or policy symbolism. It is being driven by hard farm economics, geopolitical uncertainty, and risk management. India already has a strong millet base: official communication in 2025 noted that the country produced 180.15 lakh tonnes of millets in 2024–25, with bajra accounting for 60.3% of output, while government millet platforms continue to position these crops as climate-resilient “Shree Anna” with strategic relevance for food and nutritional security. [4], [5]

The immediate trigger for this shift is the crisis in cotton. Pink bollworm — gulabi sundi — has become one of the biggest threats to cotton cultivation, attacking the fruiting bodies, damaging seeds, and reducing lint quality. The wider scientific evidence supports the seriousness of this threat: research published in 2025 found that pink bollworm and boll rot can each cause potential yield losses of around 25% in cotton if not effectively managed, while continued resistance and resurgence in Indian cotton zones have kept the crop under pressure. [7]

That broader research reality matches the farm-level experience many growers are now reporting. Farmer accounts suggest that cotton fields which once gave 10–12 quintals per acre in stronger years are, in some pockets, collapsing to near 2.5 quintals per acre under severe pest pressure. Against this, millets such as bajra and jowar are increasingly seen as lower-risk crops: pest exposure is lower, fertilizer use is lighter, irrigation demand is more modest, and harvesting is far easier than cotton’s highly labour-dependent picking model. Farmers also point out that bajra generally matures in 90–95 days, while cotton can hold land for 180–185 days, which makes millets more compatible with flexible annual crop sequences such as bajra → mustard → moong.

This comparison matters because the millet case in 2026 is not just ecological — it is operational. Cotton has become a long-duration, high-maintenance crop with multiple cost centres. It often requires several nutrient applications, repeated pesticide interventions, and expensive picking labour, with workers increasingly harder to find as migration patterns and rural labour shortages intensify. Millet cultivation, by contrast, fits the logic of a more stressed farm economy: lower input burden, faster turnaround, easier harvest, and lower dependence on volatile labour and chemical markets. In a year where farmers are trying to preserve cash flow and reduce uncertainty, that advantage becomes decisive.

The second major reason 2026 can become the real year of millets lies beyond the farm gate — in the Strait of Hormuz crisis and its effect on fertilizer security. Since the late-February 2026 escalation in the region, maritime movement through Hormuz has collapsed sharply. UN Trade and Development reported that average daily vessel transits fell from 129 during 1–27 February to just 6 during 1–29 March, effectively bringing one of the world’s most critical energy and fertilizer corridors close to a standstill. UNCTAD also recorded sharp increases in oil and gas prices during the same period, underlining how quickly geopolitical stress in West Asia feeds into agriculture through energy and input costs. [1]

For India, this is not a distant shipping story; it is a direct farm-input vulnerability. Government communication in 2025 reaffirmed that India is the second-largest consumer and third-largest producer of fertilizers globally, and that fertilizer support remains central to agricultural policy, with the Department of Fertilizers’ revised 2024–25 budget at ₹1,91,836.29 crore. At the same time, 2026 reporting on the Hormuz disruption highlighted India’s continued import dependence — around 20% of urea, 50% of DAP, and 100% of MOP are imported, while much of the natural gas used in domestic urea production is also imported, raising the system’s overall exposure to global shocks. [6], [2]

The numbers from Kharif 2026 are especially telling. India’s fertilizer requirement for the season was assessed at 390.54 lakh metric tonnes, while available stocks at one stage covered only about 51% of projected demand. Urea import prices reportedly jumped from roughly $510 per tonne in early 2026 to nearly $950 per tonne by April, while domestic production slipped to around 1.5 million tonnes per month because LNG shortages constrained fertilizer plants. In that context, crops that depend heavily on chemical fertilizers become significantly riskier, while lower-input crops like millets look far more sensible. [2], [1]

This is exactly where 2026 departs from the symbolism of 2023. In 2023, millets were celebrated. In 2026, they are becoming economically rational. They fit a year marked by pest losses in cotton, expensive agricultural labour, uncertain fertilizer availability, and rising concern over monsoon variability. Millets are no longer just “nutri-cereals” in policy language; they are increasingly becoming resilience crops in practice.

Policy signals are beginning to align with this transition. For Kharif Marketing Season 2026–27, the Government of India raised the MSP for bajra to ₹2,900 per quintal, up from ₹2,775 in 2025–26, and estimated a 56% margin over cost of production. The MSP for jowar hybrid was raised to ₹4,023 per quintal, with similar increases across other nutri-cereals. The government has explicitly stated that in recent years it has continued to promote pulses, oilseeds, and nutri-cereals/Shree Anna by offering relatively stronger MSP support. [3]

India’s Public Distribution System (PDS), implemented through NFSA and PMGKAY, currently provides free food grains to around 80.5 crore beneficiaries through nearly 20.5 crore ration cards, making it the largest food-security programme in the world. Yet, the share of millets in this basket remains extremely low: the latest available evidence shows that, out of 48.7 million tonnes of grain distributed to NFSA beneficiaries, rice accounted for 66.8%, wheat for 31.9%, and millets for just 1.3%. This is a major policy opportunity, because India already produced 18.59 million tonnes of millets in 2024–25, which means the government can expand decentralised MSP procurement of millets in millet-growing states and channel them into the PDS to improve nutrition, support rainfed farmers, and diversify cereal procurement beyond rice and wheat.  [8], [9] [10],[13]

Such a shift would also help fight climate change: millet cultivation requires only about 79 litres of irrigated water per kg, compared with 596 litres for rice and 729 litres for wheat, and research suggests that replacing 1 kg of rice with millet for 20 crore PDS beneficiaries could reduce the programme’s true cost by about US$1.37 billion per year, thanks to lower water stress and lower environmental damage. [11], [12]

Hence, the caution remains critical: farmers do not need only declared MSPs, they need actual procurement or credible price realization. A “paper MSP” does not change cropping behaviour if traders continue to buy well below the announced price. That is why 2026 could become either the real year of millets — or another missed opportunity. The difference will depend on whether policy moves beyond announcement and into procurement, processing, market-building, and value-chain support.

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References

1. UNCTAD, From gas to grain: Fertilizer disruptions raise risks for food security and trade — shipping collapse, oil/gas shock, Hormuz disruption. [businessaajkal.com]
2. The New Indian Express, Strait of Hormuz blockade triggers fertiliser squeeze ahead of Kharif season — India’s fertilizer requirement, stock coverage, urea import price surge, production disruption. [newsfirstprime.com]
3. PIB, Cabinet approves MSP for Kharif Crops for Marketing Season 2026–27 — official MSP for bajra, jowar and other crops. [insightsonindia.com]
4. PIB, Shree Anna for Shreshta Bharat — millet production, bajra share, export figures. [agrofoodbusiness.com]
5. Directorate of Millets Development, Government of India — policy framing on IYoM and millet significance. [ensureias.com]
6. PIB, Empowering India’s Farmers Through Strategic Fertilizer Policy — fertilizer budget, production status, policy framing. [agricultur....institute]
7. Agricultural Systems / Science Explorer, Field estimates of current and predicted cotton yield loss due to pink bollworm and boll rot in India — cotton loss estimates and pest burden. [thediplomat.com]
8. Press Information Bureau (1 Feb 2025) – “Key Schemes Driving Food Security Across Nation” (PDS coverage: 20.5 crore ration cards, 80.5 crore beneficiaries). [pib.gov.in]
9. Press Information Bureau (20 Dec 2024) – “Year-End Review of Department of Food and Public Distribution – 2024” (around 80 crore beneficiaries under PMGKAY). [pib.gov.in]
10. ICRISAT / Tata-Cornell Institute (May 2024) – “Including Millets in the Public Distribution System” (millets’ 1.3% share in PDS; water-use comparisons). [pressroom....crisat.org]
11. PIB Backgrounder (4 Apr 2026) – “India’s Resilient Production Systems in Agriculture” (2024–25 millet production: 18.59 million tonnes). [pib.gov.in]
12. Tata-Cornell Institute (May 2024) – “Millets Are Key to Making the PDS Environmentally Friendly” (US$1.37 billion annual true-cost reduction estimate). [tci.cornell.edu]
13. Tata-Cornell Institute (Oct 2023) – “Millets Make Sense for India’s PDS” (case for local procurement and PDS diversification). [tci.cornell.edu]