Gender Dynamics in Post-Harvest Management of Millets and Entrepreneurship among Tribal Women

This chapter focuses on the gender dimensions of millet post-harvest management and entrepreneurial opportunities among tribal women. It highlights the growing importance of millets as climate-resilient and nutritionally valuable crops, particularly in rainfed, drought-prone and tribal areas. Women undertake a major share of millet-related post-harvest work, including threshing, winnowing, cleaning, grading, drying, storage, dehusking, milling and household-level processing. However, these activities are labour-intensive, physically demanding and frequently undervalued. Tribal women often face limited ownership of processing equipment, weak access to institutional credit, limited mobility, poor market connections and low control over income from millet sales. The chapter examines how value addition, decentralised processing, branding, collective enterprises, local procurement, nutrition-based marketing and women-led producer groups can shift women from unpaid workers to recognised entrepreneurs. Odisha-based experiences, including millet promotion initiatives, are used to illustrate the potential of women-centred institutional support. The chapter recommends ergonomic equipment, local processing infrastructure, enterprise training, working capital, market assurance, producer collectives and women-sensitive extension. It concludes that millet entrepreneurship can improve income, nutrition, climate resilience and agency when women control assets, decisions and market benefits.