Constraints Faced by Millet Farmers and Millets Processing Units in Madurai District

Tamil Nadu has four per cent of the land area and three per cent of the water resources at National level. 92 per cent of total land holdings in Tamil Nadu belong to small and marginal farmers. Millets is one of the oldest foods known to mankind. Millets hold enormous hope for food and nutritional security. It is essential to know the constraints faced by millet growers in the millet cultivation and utilizing millet processing units. In view of the International Year of Millets, this study will help the policy developers to take the necessary measures. An Ex-post facto research design was used for the study. A sample size of 120 millet farmers and 10 millet processing units were selected for the study. To find out the most significant factor which influences the respondent, Garrett’s ranking technique was used. Among the constraints faced by the millet farmers animal menace was found to be first rank followed by lack of knowledge on improved varieties as second rank, uncertainty of rainfall as third and unable fetch remunerative price as fourth rank. Among the constraints faced by the processing units lack of millet polish machine ranked as first followed by lack of cooperation among members of processing unit ranked as second and lack of flexibility to operation on various phase of electricity as third rank.