Science-Led Innovation for Searching and Creating Values in Natural Gene Pool of Millets for Agri-Food Nutrition and Health

Abstract

The green revolution has increased the quantum of major cereals (wheat and rice), which otherwise would have been substantially low across the developing countries; a significant contribution that one can never undervalue. However, focused monoculture of either crop was realized particularly with respect to loss of agro-biodiversity and sustenance of nutri-rich minor crops resulting in poor food grain diversity. Albeit, these crops provide sufficient calories, they do not make a complete diet resulting in malnutrition of over 2000 million people worldwide. Millets are versatile grains valued for their exceptional nutritional profile. Being the reservoir of essential micronutrients and trace elements they are often termed as nature’s nutraceutical basket. Furthermore, their climate resilient nature and adaptation to low input agriculture makes them “harbingers for evergreen revolution.” The latest advancements in genomics and automate phenotyping techniques for searching genes and metabolites, coupled with high-throughput transformation processes have opened new avenues for product development in millets. Furthermore, various computational biology platforms help us in analyzing big molecular data of crop plants to identify valuable genes hidden in them. In addition, molecular breeding platforms may be utilized to speed up the introgression of value-added genes in high welding and widely adapted genetic backgrounds. This chapter focuses on searching for values in the natural millet gene pool of millets for developing climate smart crops with value-added traits.