The focus of this list is North America, for reasons I'll explain below, but membership is open to anyone interested in advancing millets in this region.
The dozen or so cultivated millets originate from Africa or Eurasia, and they tend to be grown in the countries of those vast regions. They are less grown in the Americas. In North America. most production of millets goes to animal forage and feed. While that is often better than using irrigated crops for animals, it still leaves a great potential for food grade millets to receive more attention in agriculture.
However, demand for millets as food for people is not yet high. In the US, only proso millet and teff are grown for food (and most of the production of these is as forage).
However, food-grade millets are being imported, notably from major millets producing countries like India and China, and to a lesser extent, West Africa and Ethiopia. These are destined mainly for specialized international or "ethnic" markets. But they have the potential to expand to larger markets (and some companies are working on that). Millets have favorable nutrition profiles, and are gluten free.
How might increased consumption of millets from abroad affect incentives for farmers and food processors in the region?
Meanwhile, climate change may make millets, which generally perform well in challenging conditions (heat, low water) more attractive to farmers. This actually is happening already to a degree in the high plains.
What happens with regard to millets in North America is not totally independent of what happens with them in the world at large, especially given that they are more important as crops and foods in several other regions. But the dynamics of millets here are worthy of focus.
