The decline in cultivation and consumption of small millets crops seen across India in recent decades is a concern for many. These highly nutritious coarse grains hold significant cultural value as traditional foods for tribal farming populations and remain important contributors to regional agro-biodiversity. Born of out this concern, small millets have garnered recent attention as underutilized crops with potential to contribute to regional food and nutritional security through market development. By localizing small millets within the broader context of agricultural change, this work investigates links between cultivation, distribution and consumption – or the market chain – of small millet varieties in northern coastal Andhra Pradesh, India. Employing an interdisciplinary methodology drawing from anthropological and agribusiness approaches, this study conducts an in-depth, qualitative market chain analysis for finger millet and little millet varieties to produce a multi-sited ethnographic work on informal agricultural marketing in the case study area. In incorporating the political economic, historical and cultural dimensions of millets and other crops, this research teases out the complex relationships between food security, livelihoods, agricultural marketing and development interventions. This research aims to demonstrate how a holistic study of an agricultural commodity, which includes on-farm cultivation and consumption, can get at how smallholder farmers participate in local markets, in everyday practice, and how they engage with change. In connecting a traditional market chain analysis with detailed ethnographic study on the ground, we can see how farmers engage with markets embedded in particular historical and sociocultural contexts. Further, this work provides insights into the challenges of small millets-based livelihoods, going beyond the market to explore the many social institutions in which market participation is embedded. In doing so, I argue that nuanced approach to millets-based livelihoods, commercial crops and broader agrarian transition is necessary.

Using technology as an entry point, I employ the concept of the ecology of practice as a lens to interpret a specific food security intervention on small millets –neglected and underutilized crops important to rainfed agriculture. The “Revalorizing small millets: Enhancing the food and nutritional security of women and children in rainfed regions of South Asia using underutilized species (RESMISA)” project objectives each evoked technology to: increase production, decrease women’s drudgery, and increase the status of small millets. I examine networks of actors, ecologies and technologies in the Nepal project sites using a multi-sited ethnographic approach. Analyzing three types of technologies (seed, machines and practices), I found divergences between natural and social scientists’ perceptions on technology development. Interests differed among the worldviews of smallholder farmers that the researchers sought to engage as participants. Understanding practices in specific ecologies matters as research for development efforts seek to close the technology adoption gap.

The majority of households in the hill regions of Nepal are net consumers of their agricultural produce. The harsh geographical topography, low landholdings and uncertain weather make households in the hills more susceptible to food insecurity. This research examines the role of small millets in achieving food and livelihood security for the people of Dhikur Pokhari VDC in Nepal. As a project based on qualitative research, data was collected through semi-structured interviews, observations and focus group discussions. In addition, market and value chain analysis for small millets was conducted. The findings show that small millets have a significant role in ensuring food security, particularly for the marginalized households. The findings also show that, through their exchange properties, small millets contributed towards generating household livelihoods. Further, findings revealed the existing formal and informal markets for small millets and showed a direct correlation between small millets-based market, and food and livelihood security for the people of Dhikur Pokhari VDC.

The majority of households in the hill regions of Nepal are net consumers of their agricultural produce. The harsh geographical topography, low landholdings and uncertain weather make households in the hills more susceptible to food insecurity. This research examines the role of small millets in achieving food and livelihood security for the people of Dhikur Pokhari VDC in Nepal. As a project based on qualitative research, data was collected through semi-structured interviews, observations and focus group discussions. In addition, market and value chain analysis for small millets was conducted. The findings show that small millets have a significant role in ensuring food security, particularly for the marginalized households. The findings also show that, through their exchange properties, small millets contributed towards generating household livelihoods. Further, findings revealed the existing formal and informal markets for small millets and showed a direct correlation between small millets-based market, and food and livelihood security for the people of Dhikur Pokhari VDC.