Intercropping Options for Sustainable Minor Millet Production: A Review

Abstract

High population pressure, climate change, stagnant crop productivity, changing food habit and declining natural resources compelled us to go for climate resilient resource conservation technologies to bring sustainability in our crop production. Crop diversification by replacing high input requiring cereals with “nutri- cereals” minor millets in our crop rotations and by following intercropping of minor millets with pulses or oilseeds may be economically profitable, environmentally safe and socially acceptable approach to ensure food and nutritional security of the burgeoning population. This is high time to include millets in our daily diets but millet availability in sufficient amount is big issue. Millets are crops of rainfed and dryland resource poor areas and moreover under the threat of global warming and changed climatic scenario sole planting of millets generally gives less economic returns. So, there is an urgent need for incorporation of the pulses/oilseeds as intercrop in millets production system to enhance the production to feed the increasing population on sustained basis besides restoring the soil nutritional status and to overcome the environmental stress. But performance of intercropping system depends on proper selections of suitable intercrop, appropriate row ratio combination and proper input management. Very limited research work has been conducted on intercropping in millets so far but noteworthy information was recorded by the researchers, which has been reviewed through a sincere effort here to give critical view about intercropping in minor millets for agricultural sustainability to the farmers, researchers and consumers.