CSIR-National Institute of Science Communication and Policy Research (NIScPR), one of the CSIR labs, has a glorious legacy of 70 years in science communication and building scientific temper among diverse stakeholders. The institute has recently launched a national initiative, SVASTIK (Scientifically Validated Societal Traditional Knowledge) for communicating India’s traditional knowledge to the society upon the call of our Hon’ble Prime Minister and President, CSIR Society, Shri Narendra Modi. As a part of this initiative, simplified creative content on traditional knowledge/practices of India with a scientific basis is being disseminated in various Indian languages on all popular social media platforms with the name @NIScPR_SVASTIK.

The year 2023 is being celebrated as the International Year of Millets to promote and popularize millets which are often known as ‘The Miracle Grains’ or ‘The Super Foods’. These ancient grains offer various advantages over the popular and conventional cereal crops like wheat, rice, and maize. It is because they are good sources of nutrients, naturally gluten -free, highly adaptive to a wide range of ecological conditions, can help improve farmer’s livelihood in water scarce regions and their cultivation helps to reduce carbon footprints from the nature. Despite several advantages that millets offer, the storage of millet grains or millet flour is one of the biggest challenges. The millets have poor shelf life due to their high fat content as well as lipase activity which causes rapid development of rancidity and bitterness. The shelf life of millets greatly depends on different pre-treatments applied and storage conditions. Certainly, there were traditional methods practiced by our ancestors to store millet flour to avoid rancidity and microbial attack as well as to increase the shelf life of millets.

Thus, it is time to revisit the past and revive a few of the sustainable and traditional ways to store millet grains and flour. Do you know any? If yes, then you can contribute to the documentation of traditional ways of millet storage by taking part in yet another interesting activity brought together by SVASTIK and MyGov "Share Your Traditional Ways to Store Millets". This activity allows participants to share knowledge and pictures of traditional millet storage techniques (both short term and long-term storage techniques). The future of millets is awaiting the storage secrets from the past!

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