Sustaining Nutri-Cereal Consumption in Rural Areas: Role of Access to Free Grains

The production and consumption of nutri-cereals (NCs), more commonly known as coarse cereals, offer significant benefits enhancing soil, human, and livestock health, yet their adoption remains limited. This study aims to investigate NC consumption in the backdrop of free grains interventions to the poor through various schemes, particularly, Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY). Despite various promotions given to the NCs especially millets in recent years (e.g., National Year of Millets, 2018; International Year of Millets, 2023), the NSSO’s HCES 2022-23 data shows the decline in the per capita consumption of the NC and an increase of per capita rice and wheat among the rural consumers who have access to PMGKAY. Based on a causal evaluation framework, the treated households are those not availing free rice and wheat while the control are those who avail free grains within the sample of major NC-consuming states and households reporting access to PMGKAY. Propensity score matching technique is used to analyze the impact based on the average treatment effect on the treated and inverse probability weighted regression adjustment is additionally used to account for potential confounding from observed covariates. The results reveal that the households not consuming free grains but had PMGKAY access consumed 12 percent more NCs than the matched control group, clearly indicating NCs are substituted away by access to free grain consumption among all those households that had the habit of NC consumption. The control group though gain marginally in protein intake and a larger gain in calories from rice and wheat but lose out on the micronutrient consumption from NCs, thereby adversely affecting nutritional diversity. These findings underscore the urgent need for a policy shift that integrates NCs into food security programs, thereby promoting both dietary and nutritional diversity and mitigating the adverse effects of over-dependence on refined cereals.