Assessing the impact of the indigenous farmers' food literacy on millet production: evidence from Eastern India

This study investigates the relationship between food literacy and farmer’s intent to produce millets for their subsistence. To do so, we used a structured questionnaire highlighting three aspects of food literacy by drawing data from 100 millet producers from a remote tribal region in the Koraput district of Odisha and employed the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator regression technique and other regression methods for robustness. The result from the regression methods has revealed that variables associated with food literacy, such as knowledge about the farmland type, farm mechanization, and nutritional uses influence millet production. However, the cultural importance of millet had a significant impact on millet production as millet is culturally associated with tribal culture. Overall findings underscore the effective use of technology that supports the feminization and protection of indigenous millet crops and endorse the implementation of special schemes for the promotion and marketing of millets.