Lost Crops of Africa Volume I: Grains (1996) / Chapter Skim
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4 Pearl Millet
4 Pearl Millet
Pages 77-92
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From page 77... ...
Today, pearl millet is so important that it is planted on some 14 million hectares in Africa and 14 million hectares in Asia. Global production of its grain probably exceeds 10 million tons a year,2 to which India contributes nearly half.
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From page 78... ...
A farmer carrying millet heads to prepare the daily meal.
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From page 79... ...
It is there that the famines of recent decades have brought mass devastation and death. It is there that expanding deserts are destroying the productivity of perhaps 25 million hectares every year.
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From page 80... ...
Africa's major pearlmillet producing countries include Nigeria, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Senegal in the west; Sudan and Uganda in the east. In southern Africa, the commercialization of agriculture has resulted in maize partially or completely displacing this traditional food crop.
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From page 81... ...
The next chapter highlights its promise for subsistence farmers the millions in Africa and Asia to whom pearl millet means life itself. The subsequent chapter highlights commercial pearl millets" the types that are increasingly grown by farmers who produce a surplus to sell.
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From page 82... ...
Bajra, as it is called, is currently grown on almost 10 percent of India's food-grain area, and it yields about 5 percent of the country's cereal food. Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Uttar Pradesh account for nearly 80 percent of the 14 million hectares planted and 70 percent of the 5 million tons of pearl millet grain produced each year.
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From page 83... ...
Improved strains, suited to various regions, have been created and released for cultivation. Indeed, its potential is being increasingly exploited, especially as the swelling population requires increased cultivation of marginal land.
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From page 84... ...
In many tropical countries it will be very expensive to satisfy this demand unless millet can become bread. And this, too, the politicians recognize and they will support this demand whether efforts can be made to decrease the cost of giving people the food that they demand.
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From page 85... ...
The protein's biological value and digestibility coefficient have been measured as 83 percent and 89 percent, respectively.6 The protein efficiency ratio has been found to be 1.43, which is even better than that of wheat (1.21.7 The grain has about 5 percent fat, roughly twice the amount found in the standard cereals. It is composed of about 75 percent unsaturated and 24 percent saturated fatty acids.
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From page 86... ...
The unsaturated fatty acids making up the oil are oleic (20-31 percent) , linoleic (40-52 percent)
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From page 87... ...
In general, however, the reported values show higher tryptophan, threonine, and valine and lower leucine, but otherwise similar essential amino acids in pearl millet compared with grain sorghum. What is uncertain, however, is the digestibility of pearl millet protein.
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From page 88... ...
Studies conducted on children showed that all the subjects fed diets based on pearl millet maintained positive balance with respect to nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus. The protein's apparent digestibility was about 53 percent, an amount close to that for finger millet and sorghum proteins, but less than that of rice protein (65 percent)
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From page 89... ...
Distribution The two vast areas of West and East Africa where pearl millet is prominent have already been mentioned (see page 801. Soon after its domestication, the crop became widely distributed across the semiarid tropics of both Africa (15 million hectares)
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From page 90... ...
Most yield improvements have resulted from incorporating genes from African varieties into Indian breeder stocks. However, a breakthrough came in the late 1950s when plants carrying cytoplasmic male sterility were discovered.
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From page 91... ...
'2 The northern limit of sorghum in West Africa is around the 375-mm isohyet; that of pearl millet is further north around the 250-mm isohyet. The crop's drought resistance comes from its rapid growth, short life cycle, high temperature tolerance and developmental plasticity.
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