Planta - Call for papers: Millets for Food Security and Agricultural Sustainability

Celebrating the Food and Agriculture Organization and United Nations’ ‘International Year of Millets’ (IYM2023)

Millets are one of the major sources of food and fodder crops in the semi-arid tropics of Asia and Africa. Millets provide essential nutrients and energy to humans. Millets are resilient to harsh climates and rich in nutritional properties compared to major cereals like rice and wheat. Although millets have been cultivated and consumed by the rural population in the semi-arid tropics of Asia and Africa for several thousand years, their climate resilience and nutrient enrichment property attracted the attention of researchers in recent years. Hence, the Food and Agriculture Organization and United Nations has declared 2023 the International Year of Millets (IYM2023) (this opens in a new tab), considering their key role in promoting climate-resilient agriculture and nutrient supplementation among the rural population. In parallel, many labs worldwide have started studies on millets, resulting in a steady rise of research publications on millets.

Millets are also considered orphan crops, and the genetic and genomic resources of these crops are lagging behind main cereals like rice and wheat. Compared to major cereals, there are less researchers working on small millets using modern genetic and genomic tools. The genome sequences of millets, except for foxtail millet, have started to be reported in recent years. So it is important to undertake further high-resolution studies in millets to dissect the climate-resilient and nutrient-fortification traits, and transfer such beneficial traits to non-millet cereals to conserve food and nutrient security in the hands of climate change.

This topic collection welcomes research and review articles related to the studies on millets. Works that include genetic, genomic, physiological, biochemical, and biotechnological studies on millets to decode and improve climate resilience and nutrient enrichment properties will be considered for publication.

Open for submission:  8 May 2023
Submission deadline: 29 February 2024
 

Editors

• STANISLAUS Antony Ceasar (Division of Plant Molecular Biology & Biotechnology, Rajagiri College of Social Sciences, India)
• Alison Baker (School of Molecular and Cellular Biology, University of Leeds, UK)