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Food health
Food health
Finger Millet couscous with fish or meat. numerous economies—even
In parts of East and Central some of the most advanced.
Africa (not to mention India), The plant grows well on poor, Agriculture is usually a
millions of people have lived sandy soils. It, too, is rich in country’s biggest user of
off finger millet (Eleusine the amino acid methionine. water. Thus, for nations that
coracana) for centuries. One of It also has a high level of have never heard of it or that
the most nutritious of the major cystine, a feature that is an perhaps regard it with scorn,
cereals, it is rich in methionine, even rarer find in a cereal. With pearl millet might quickly rise
an amino acid critically lacking its appealing taste and high to become a vital resource.
in the diets of hundreds of nutritional value, this could
millions of the world’s poor. become a widespread gourmet Sorghum
grain for savanna regions, Globally speaking, sorghum is
The plant yields satisfactorily perhaps throughout much of the dietary staple of more than
on marginal lands, and its tasty Africa or even much of the 500 million people in more
grain is remarkable for its world. It might well have a big than 30 countries. Only rice,
long storage life. The fact that future as a cash crop and export wheat, maize, and potatoes
certain Africans thrive on just commodity. surpass it in the quantity
one meal a day is attributed to eaten. For all that, however,
the nutritive value and ‘’filling” Pearl Millet it produces merely a fraction
nature of this grain. Some 4,000 years ago, pearl of what it could. Indeed, if the
millet (Pennisetum glaucum) twentieth century has been
Fonio (Acha) was domesticated from a wild the century of wheat, rice, and
An indigenous West African grass of the southern Sahara. maize, the twenty-first could
crop, fonio (comprising two Today, it is the world’s sixth- become the century of sorghum
species, Digitaria exilis and largest cereal crop, but it has (Sorghum bicolor).
Digitaria iburua) is grown even greater potential than
mainly on small farms for most people imagine. Of the First, sorghum is among
home consumption. It is major cereals, pearl millet is the most photosynthetically
probably the world’s fastest the most tolerant of heat and efficient and quickest maturing
maturing cereal and is drought; it has the power to food plants. Second, it thrives
particularly important as a yield reliably in regions too on many marginal sites where
safety net for producing when arid and too hot to consistently other cereals fail. Third,
other foods are in short supply support good yields of other sorghum is perhaps the world’s
or market prices are too high major grains. These happen to most versatile food crop. Some
for poor people to afford. But be the regions that will most types of its grains are boiled
fonio is much more than desperately need help in the like rice, cracked like oats for
just a fallback food; it is also decades ahead. porridge, “malted” like barley
a gourmet grain. People enjoy Already, water is shaping up as for beer, baked like wheat
it as a porridge, in soups, or as the most limiting resource for into flatbreads, or popped like
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