INTRODUCTION
India is one of the important consumer and producer of Nutri-cereals in the world. Group of crops comprising sorghum (Jowar), pearl millet (Bajra), finger millet (Ragi/Mandua) and small millets viz; little millet (Kutki), kodo millet (Kodo), barnyard millet (Sawa/Jhangora), foxtail millet (Kangni/Kakun), proso millet (Cheena) all together comes under Millets which is now called as ‘Nutri-Cereals’ due to their high nutritive value. Nutri-cereals were important crops in the country with higher area coverage as compared to wheat and rice before green revolution period. After launching green revolution, the area of Nutri-cereals drastically reduced due to shifting of irrigated area from Nutri-cereals to more remunerative crops like rice, wheat and sugarcane. At present, Nutri-cereals are grown in resource poor agro-climatic regions, hilly & tribal areas of the country in rainfed conditions. Nutri-cereals are known for nutri-rich content and having characteristics like drought tolerance, photo-insensitivity and resilient to climate change etc. Nutri-cereals are grown in arid and semi-arid tracts under low rainfall (200-600 mm) conditions, where fine cereals like wheat and rice cannot be grown profitably.