Millet: a sustainable, climate-resilient nutritious, gluten-free food source – full of flavour and culinary potential
Dev Biswal, the owner-chef of two restaurants in Kent, is pioneering a farm project to assess whether proso millet can become a sustainable, climate-resilient spring break crop for UK agriculture.
Biswal, who owns the award-winning The Cooks Tale restaurant and Café Marrakech in Canterbury, is working with local farmer Emma Loder-Symonds of Nonington Farms in Kent.
Dubbed The Millit Project, the initiative is the first robust scientific and commercial assessment of the grain and involves DEFRA with funding from Innovate UK. It will assemble a wider consortium of farmers, scientists, food specialists to evaluate the grain’s suitability as a profitable UK-grown food crop.
During a culinary research trip to India last year, for his The Cook’s Adventures travel arm, Dev witnessed first-hand how millet grains are transforming diets and livelihoods across the country.
“As a chef, I was fascinated not only by their nutritional value but also by their remarkable flavour, versatility and culinary potential,” said Biswal, who already uses imported millet on his menus.
Millets have been a cornerstone of Indian cuisine for thousands of years, particularly in his home state of Odisha, where they have traditionally been cultivated in some of the country’s most challenging agricultural environments.
“What struck me most was how relevant these ancient grains are to the challenges facing modern agriculture.”
Millets require significantly less water than rice, thrive in harsh growing conditions and are naturally resilient to drought and extreme weather. Research suggests some millet varieties require up to 70% less water than rice while maintaining strong nutritional value. Millet grains are naturally gluten-free and could benefit from the growing interest in fermented food and gut health.
“When I met Emma Loder-Symonds and the team at Nonington Farms, I realised we shared a common vision: finding practical and commercially viable solutions to future food security and climate challenges.”
The relationship began through Dev sourcing local ingredients for his restaurants. Throughout that collaboration, he was impressed by the farm’s willingness to innovate and explore alternative crops and sustainable farming practices. The pair have previously worked together using organically grown wheat from the farm to produce Indian flatbreads, alongside locally grown seasonal vegetables.
Millet and beans were drilled in May 2026 at trial sites in Kent and Bedfordshire, seeking to establish millet as a viable UK-grown grain for human consumption, providing arable farmers with new opportunities whilst catering to a demand for nutritious, gluten-free and environmentally sustainable crops.
Despite already being grown in the UK as birdseed, millet’s potential as a high-value human crop food is mostly uninvestigated.
The project will utilise field-scale trials in Kent and Bedfordshire, nutritional analysis, pre-processing research and recipe development led by Biswal.
Amid increasing climate pressures and arable growers searching for alternatives to traditional break crops such as oilseed rape, the project aims to deliver the first robust scientific and commercial assessment of proso millet’s role in UK food and farming systems.
The Mill-it Project leader, Emma Loder-Symonds, said: “We are excited to explore the potential of millet as a food crop in the UK. Working alongside scientists and farmers across the country, we will trial how millet could fit into British rotations and food systems and investigate how processing and fermentation may improve its nutritional value.
Author: George Shaw
Former BBC journalist and founder and CEO of an award-winning London advertising and PR company for 20 years, providing restaurant consultancy services. Spent a decade as the director of communications of the Asian Catering Federation in the UK and lead judge for its various restaurant and chef awards programmes. Now returned to journalism, specialising in food and travel and currently the Editor-in-Chief for Taste London, Taste Asia, the Good Curry Guide and CEO of International Culinary Guides.