Climate resilient millets: emerging paradigms for the rising paradox

Providing food for the world’s expanding population which is expected to exceed 10 billion by the year 2050 is a major challenge to present-day agriculture. While increased crop productivity can help to some extent, the challenges posed by climate change and global warming pose a severe threat to global food production. While there is a huge concentration of research on staple crops like rice, wheat and maize, mainstream science continues to ignore underutilized crops like millets that are naturally climate-resilient and nutritionally superior to major staple grains. Millets by nature can withstand moderate to harsh environments and are packed with nutrients that emphasizes their importance and significance. The transfer of genes associated with stress tolerance to closely related cereals involve introducing specific stress-tolerant genes to major cereals from millets that can contribute to the enhancement of stress resilience in cereal crops. In this review, the importance of millets and the need for potential improvement of millets are presented in detail. Additionally, the genetic and genomic resources available for millets, as well as their superior agronomic and nutritional traits are discussed. Finally, the use of machine-learning models and next-generation tools for trait improvement in millets are also explored in this review.