The Missing Link in Millet Policy: Endorsement, Visibility, and Access in Palakkad

This perspective article revisits primary survey data collected in an earlier study of customer perception toward millet production and usage in Palakkad Town (N = 81) and reframes the findings around a policy question rather than a descriptive one: given what respondents already believe and prefer, where should limited promotional and policy resources actually be directed? The original analysis, using one-way ANOVA, one-sample t-tests, and the Friedman test, showed that awareness varies significantly by age, that consumer sentiment toward millet products is already favourable on price, availability, taste, and trust, and that promotional exposure and social recommendation outrank intrinsic factors such as nutrition and price as drivers of adoption. Read as policy inputs, these results argue for age-segmented awareness campaigns, formalised word-of-mouth and endorsement channels, expanded retail visibility over further price intervention, and closer sequencing between farmer-facing supply programs and demand-side promotion. No new primary data were collected for this article; it is offered as a policy-oriented reanalysis of previously reported findings, with the reuse of that dataset disclosed throughout.