- Collab - lists.millets2023.space

A "long-tail" or a Fibonacci of millets?
by Don Osborn 18 Dec '22

18 Dec '22

I was looking at some figures (estimates) for global production of various millets and here's what it looks like (in million metric tons): Sorghum 60, pearl millet 15, finger millet 4, proso millet 3, others probably less than 1, some perhaps quite a bit less than 1. Elsewhere I read that pearl millet accounts for half of all millets production (not counting sorghum). So sorghum may have twice the global production currently as all the other millets combined Anyway, that kind of distribution looks a lot like a classic "long tail."/1 It also, and perhaps more interestingly, calls to mind a Fibonacci sequence/2 in reverse - altho with a few steps missing. A Fibonacci sequence is where each successive number is the sum of the preceding two: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, .It's a sequence related to the "Golden ratio,"/3 which is among patterns observed in nature./4 The reason that all this is of interest is actually a set of questions: * Would production of different forms of any class of foods - say millets, or cereals in general - tend to form a typical pattern such as a long-tail distro or a Fibonacci sequence,, or perhaps even the Pareto principle (80-20 rule)? /5 * And if there is a tendency to fall in certain patterns, how will increased production and consumption of millets affect (or disrupt?) the ordering of grains produced? This may sound hopelessly abstract, but I'm suggesting that it's useful to be alert to such patterns & relational dynamics when thinking strategically about the impacts of incorporating millets into food cultures that don't currently have much place for them. (For reference, I think global wheat production is currently on the order of 700 million metric tons per year, and rice, close to that amount. In other words, each approaching an order of magnitude greater than all millets combined - which total maybe 90 m mT per year. All these are very approximate figures, but indicative of current relative production levels ) Don Osborn, PhD (East Lansing, MI, US) North American Millets Alliance don(a)milletsalliance.org Notes: 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_tail 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci_sequence 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_ratio 4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patterns_in_nature 5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_distribution

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Podcast episode mentioning millets & a lot more if interest
by Don Osborn 09 Dec '22

09 Dec '22

Our colleague Joni Kindwall-Moore was interviewed in a podcast last April (that I just happened on earlier this week) and I'd like to recommend it highly as a good background for a number of issues related to promotion of millets The series is the Inland Northwest Artisan Grains Podcast of University of Idaho Extension (with apparently a couple of subtitles "Unpacking the Grainshed" and "From field to flour"). In this episode, Joni and the interviewers (Ali Schultheis & Colette DePhelps) cover a lot of ground, including the challenges of running a small food business, sourcing of consistent quality millets, artisanal grains & how millets relate to that sector, and limited numbers of mills where one can process specialty grains. Also touched on are issues nutrition & health. NAMA is briefly discussed beginning at 32:45. This podcast episode is available at: * https://www.idahofoodworks.org/field-to-flour (scroll to "Idaho Food Works - S2E9 - Snacktivist Foods: Regenerative by Design") * https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/inland-northwest-artisan-grains-podca… DO, EL, MI, US NAMA -- Don Osborn, PhD (East Lansing, MI, US - +1 202-621-3911) North American Millets Alliance

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International Year of Millets opening ceremony/side event, 6 Dec 2022
by Don Osborn 27 Nov '22

27 Nov '22

The International Year of Millets (2023) will be officially launched on Tuesday 6 December 2022. You may register online for the opening ceremony / side event at: https://fao.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_0LzF2j6oRiqbREOD9fgUag The event, which will physically take place in Rome, begin at 12:30 CET on 6 Dec., which translates as 6:30 am EST & 3:30 am PST I just registered for remote attendance (it is termed as a "webinar") and it took just a moment to do so. Don Don Osborn, PhD (East Lansing, MI, US North American Millets Alliance don(a)milletsalliance.org

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Broken pearl millet (grits) & the versatility of millets
by Don Osborn 26 Nov '22

26 Nov '22

A few months ago I did a series of simple kitchen experiments / personal taste tests with several millets and posted about them here: little,/1 kodo,/2 and a combination of proso with pecans./3 Another one was broken or cracked pearl millet, with the size of grits. More on that now, with a bit of background. Pearl millet was my first "millet," in Togo (West Africa), and I ate quite a bit of it later in Mali - all of this from the late 1970s to mid 1980s. Except for longer or shorter later stints in that region, I never had pearl millet. Never found it in the US, until discovering "bajri" flour in an Indian market in Virginia in 2015. After that, I occasionally used pearl millet flour in making hot cereal, echoing faintly the "mɔni" porridge commonly eaten early in the day in Mali (as expressed in Bambara language). The flour is most often used in making "to" (toh), which is technically a "stiff porridge" of dough-like consistency, pieces of which are pulled off to dunk in a sauce to eat. However different "grinds" (coffee reference) of this grain are used in other ways - a somewhat fine grind is steamed as couscous ("basi" in Bambara), and a somewhat coarser grind boiled as another porridge called "seri." When I found a "broken pearl millet (grits)" product online, from an Indian company called Shastha Foods (it's in the attached image), I decided to see if I could duplicate either couscous or seri with it. Here are the results, such as they are (I'm not much of a cook - I can beat the same set of drums and fill the ears, but it desn't always count as music): 1. First tried it in the same small rice-cooker used for the other millets. That didn't work too well (stuck together), so I recycled it into a hot cereal, which was fine 2. Next, I tried to steam it, which worked okay. That's what you see in the white bowl in the photo. However it was coarser than the couscous I remembered from Mali, and didn't fluff so well (I hope later to try a "semolina" or "polenta" type grind) 3. Finally I tried it as hot cereal, and that worked well. These days I actually might combine it with rolled oats or steel-cut oats for a hearty breakfast with an interesting taste combination. A quick note on cracking millets: I think it is only done with what are sometimes called the "major" millets - i.e., sorghum and pearl millet - adding to the ways in which one can cook and serve them. It doesn't seem to make much sense for the smaller millets. Of course any millet can be milled to a flour. I don't know if it's possible to roll millets as one would oats, but that might add another dimension. I have seen millet flakes ("flocons" in French) for sale,/4 /5 but not clear on the process by which they are made. >From one description (in French) it sounds more like pre-cooking (by steam) with no mention of any mechanical process other than dehulling (these are apparently proso, not pearl)./6 I think that making millet flakes as one would corn flakes is a different process entirely./7 Any further info on rolling or flaking millets would be welcome. Don Don Osborn, PhD (East Lansing, MI, US North American Millets Alliance don(a)milletsalliance.org Notes: 1. https://lists.millets2023.space/pipermail/collab/2022-May/000052.html 2. https://lists.millets2023.space/pipermail/collab/2022-August/000082.html 3. https://lists.millets2023.space/pipermail/collab/2022-May/000059.html 4. https://www.celnat.fr/en/ref/millet-flakes-en 5. https://world.openfoodfacts.org/product/7610200074201/flocons-de-millet-mig… 6. https://litchivanille.com/2019/02/24/flocons-de-millet/ 7. https://nativefoodstore.com/Overseas/shop-2/millet-flakes-millet-breakfast-…

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Re: [Collab] Sorghum Samples for the IYM Opening Ceremony in Rome
by Board, Sorghum 26 Nov '22

26 Nov '22

Greetings! Thank you for your message. Sorghum is included in the IYM. I am sure your samples would be welcomed. Mr. Mazzucchelli is cc’d on this email. Additionally, we are hosting an international sorghum processor and investor summit in Nebraska in March 2023. Look for the event on eventbright.com keyword: Nebraska Sorghum. We’d love to have you there! All the best, Nate Blum Executive Director Nebraska Grain Sorghum Board Office: 402-471-4276<tel:402-471-4276> Nebraska Sorghum Producers Association Office: 402-471-3552<tel:402-471-3552> Cell: 402-802-1850<tel:402-802-1850> Mail: P.O. Box 94982 Lincoln, NE 68509-4982 Sorghum.board(a)nebraska.gov [Sorghum Board Logo][NSPA Gold] ________________________________ From: Paola Mejia <export(a)coronilla.com> Sent: Tuesday, November 22, 2022 10:45 AM To: Board, Sorghum <Sorghum.board(a)nebraska.gov>; don(a)milletsalliance.org <don(a)milletsalliance.org>; collab(a)lists.millets2023.space <collab(a)lists.millets2023.space>; Diego Pelaez <dpelaez(a)coronilla.com>; Paola Mejía <export(a)coronilla.com> Subject: Sorghum Samples for the IYM Opening Ceremony in Rome To whom may correspond, I just sent an email to you. Please discard it , I made a mistake. We are a gluten free manufacturer of pastas, with our facility based in Bolivia. We have two recipes with sorghum not millet and we are interested in sending samples for the event in Rome. Can you put me in contact with Riccardo Mazzucchelli, who I believe is in charge of the samples. We can send samples, once he or you send us the address and under whose name they should be sent. Kind regards, [https://ci3.googleusercontent.com/mail-sig/AIorK4yU8gIOkjah4trK8MML_8MCuU2K…] On Tue, Nov 22, 2022 at 12:30 PM Paola Mejia <exportcoronilla(a)gmail.com<mailto:exportcoronilla@gmail.com>> wrote: To whom may correspond, We are a gluten free manufacturer of pastas, with our facility based in Bolivia. We have two recipes with millet and we are interested in sending samples for the event in Rome. Can you put me in contact with Riccardo Mazzucchelli, who I believe is in charge of the samples. We can send samples, once he or you send us the address and under whose name they should be sent. Kind regards,[https://ci3.googleusercontent.com/mail-sig/AIorK4yU8gIOkjah4trK8MM…

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Pearl millet for grain in the Southeast US?
by Don Osborn 25 Nov '22

25 Nov '22

Pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum) is grown in various parts of North America, mainly for forage or cover crop (an estimated 1.5 million acres in the US/1). It can be grown throughout the US./2 In a previous message I briefly discussed the northern limits of pearl millet cultivation (trials in Quebec & Michigan's Upper Peninsula)./3 Here I'd like to focus briefly on what may be a more promising North American regions for its cultivation for grain: beginning with the southeastern US My impression is that pearl millet is already more commonly grown in the latter region than elsewhere. According to an article by Univ. of Georgia Extension, it "has a long history of use as a summer grazing and hay crop in the southeastern United States."/4 By contrast, main locations of proso millet, sorghum, and teff in the US are, respectively, Colorado, Nebraska, and Idaho, About 20 years ago, a pearl millet hybrid suitable for grain production in the US was developed in Georgia./4 /5 A primary target for pearl millet grain was poultry diets, although the potential for use for human food was also mentioned. Interestingly, proso is also discussed as an alternative poultry feed. And US grown proso is already established as a minor grain for human consumption. Anyway, two decades after the pearl millet variety for grain was introduced, it is not clear how much of it is now grown for what. There was a brief discussion on LinkedIn recently with a grower in Kansas who had success with grain pearl millet in 2018, which one hopes isn't an isolated case. In any event, it would be interesting to have some statistics as well as other stories. Don Osborn, PhD (East Lansing, MI, US) North American Millets Alliance don at milletsalliance.org Notes: 1. "Pearl Millet," Iowa State University, Extension and Outreach, Alternative Agriculture (last revision 2013?; PDF version indicates it was written by Dr. Rob Myers, 2002) https://www.extension.iastate.edu/alternativeag/cropproduction/pearlmillet.… 2. "PEARL MILLET Pennisetum glaucum (L.) R. Br.," USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service Plant Guide, 2014 https://plants.usda.gov/DocumentLibrary/plantguide/pdf/pg_pegl2.pdf 3. https://lists.millets2023.space/pipermail/collab/2022-March/000026.html 4. "Pearl Millet for Grain," Univ. of Georgia Extension, Bulletin 1216, 2002 (latest revision 2018) https://extension.uga.edu/publications/detail.html?pk_id=7172 5. "Pearl millet: A new crop for Southeast?" Sharon Durham, United States Department of Agriculture | Feb 07, 2003 https://www.farmprogress.com/pearl-millet-new-crop-southeast 6. Clint Brauer https://www.linkedin.com/posts/clintbrauer_joni-kindwall-moore-rn-this-was-…

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Fwd: Urgent: Samples for the IYM Opening Ceremony in Rome
by Don Osborn 21 Nov '22

21 Nov '22

With Nate Blum's permission, I'm forwarding this item concerning samples of products made with millets for the International Year of Millets Opening Ceremony in Rome on December 6. Note that responses to that request, and questions about it, should be directed to Riccardo Mazzucchelli at the e-address in Nat'es email below. Mr. Mazzucchelli participated in the Nov. 17 meeting for those of you who were there. Apologies to those who have already received this via another channel. Don DO, EL, MI, US NAMA bcc: Riccardo Mazzucchelli ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Board, Sorghum <Sorghum.board(a)nebraska.gov> Date: Mon, Nov 21, 2022 at 1:19 PM Subject: Urgent: Samples for the IYM Opening Ceremony in Rome To: International-Year-Millets <International-Year-Millets(a)fao.org> Cc: ... Team: The United nations FAO is seeking “airline-sized” and non-perishable samples of products made with sorghum and millets. I believe there could be room for both food and some industrial product samples as examples of what sorghum and millets can do. The products will be made available at the International Year of Millets Opening Ceremony in Rome on December 6. If you would like your product to be featured, please contact Mr. Riccardo Mazzucchelli at: international-year-millets(a)fao.org. Time is of the essence here. Please contact Mr. Mazzucchelli right away if you are interested and capable of being of assistance in filling their request and showcasing your product on a global stage. If you know someone who should have been included on this message but wasn’t, please feel free to forward the request. Respectfully, Nate Blum Executive Director Nebraska Grain Sorghum Board Office: 402-471-4276 Nebraska Sorghum Producers Association Office: 402-471-3552 Cell: 402-802-1850 Mail: 245 Fallbrook BLVD, Suite 205 Lincoln, NE 68521 Email: Sorghum.board(a)nebraska.gov Website: www.nebraskasorghum.org [image: Sorghum Board Logo][image: NSPA Gold]

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Brief presentation on NAMA & the way forward on the webinar series
by Don Osborn 19 Nov '22

19 Nov '22

The North American Millets Alliance (NAMA) held a second Zoom meeting on Thursday 17 November 2022 for a number of invited participants. As part of the meeting, there was a short & simple PowerPoint presentation focusing mainly on how to move ahead with the proposal for a webinar series. Also a brief mention of the millet-of-the-month concept, about which I'll post again separately. That presentation is attached. It will also be made available to participants in the 10/21 * 11/17 meetings. (So some of you on this list will see it again - apologies.) Also attached is the most recent version (3) of NAMA's FAQ, which you may of course share. Thanks and best to all, Don Don Osborn, PhD (East Lansing, MI, US) North American Millets Alliance don(a)milletsalliance.org

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Setaria & Panicum spp. for food in N. America before 1492
by Don Osborn 08 Nov '22

08 Nov '22

Long before the millets we are talking about today came to the shores of North America, and well before Columbus, Native Americans cultivated species of Setaria and Panicum - cousins, in effect, of today's foxtail (S. italica) and proso (P. mileaceum) millets. Aside from being interesting in its own right, I think this history - or prehistory - might be a unique dimension of our messaging about the International Year of Millets (IYM) in 2023. The species of millets, as we discuss them today, are crops originally of Eurasia and Africa, and parts of food cultures of those regions for ages. As we look to expand their cultivation and consumption here, it is worth remembering that the first peoples of this continent apparently had their own millets as part of their own rich foodways. We all are familiar with the amazing story of corn (maize), at least in its outlines - that this productive crop was domesticated and developed in Mexico, and eventually became part of Native American food cultures across the continent. But corn was not the only grain or source of starch for these peoples, especially over the time before it disseminated out of the location of its domestication. There is renewed interest in the story of these other crops/foods, as evidenced by an article earlier this month in The Atlantic./1 That article, however, doesn't mention millets (apart from the example of browntop millet in India, cultivation of which almost ceased at one point). So in the rest of this post, I'll briefly spotlight one species each in the genera of Setaria and Panicum, and what we currently understand about them from paleoethnobotony and, in the latter case, apparent ongoing cultivation: SETARIA GENICULATA or S. PARVIFLORA According to one source/2 (which cites others/3 /4 /5 /6), "A species of Setaria, probably S. geniculata, was the oldest cultivated cereal in the Americas, its origins dating to almost 9000 B.P." I believe this is another name for S. parviflora,/7 but have no expertise on this subject. This may be the only Setaria native to North America (if I read Dekker/2 correctly). Another source/8 discusses this cereal as S. parviflora, addressing possible reasons for abandonment of its cultivation, with reference to Setarias elsewhere. Its reference to other Setarias gathered, but not necessarily cultivated, for their comestible grains is also of interest. At the same time, it bears mentioning that may of those other Setarias are today considered weeds./2 It would be of great interest to know of anyone cultivating (or gathering) seeds of S. geniculata / S. parviflora for any food purposes. PANICUM HIRTICAULE or P. SONORUM A species of Panicum - P. hirticaule or P. sonorum - has been well documented as being under cultivation in what is now the SW US and northern Mexico since prehistoric times until modern times./9 /10 Cultivation now is apparently limited largely to small farms notably of Wariho Indians in Sonora, Mexico, where it was documented as recently as 2011./11 Regarding nomenclature, it seems that P. hirticaule/12 may be used more for the wild varieties, and P. sonorum/13 for the larger and larger-grained variants that have been cultivated. However usage varies, esp. in older literature. At one point, it was thought that this grain - its cultivated variety - was extinct./11 An important range of cultivation in the Colorado River delta effectively disappeared as an indirect effect of the Hoover Dam./9 Its present status is "vulnerable."/13 There is some discussion of whether P. sonorum is truly "domesticated" in the strictest agricultural sense of the term, but there is no question that it has long been selected and cultivated NATIVE AMERICAN MILLETS IN IYM? The prehistory, history, and limited current use of species of Setaria and Panicum in the agriculture and foodways of the first inhabitants of North America are in the domain of "hidden histories" and "lost crops." That should change, and current interest in crops of Native Americans before 1492, along with the focus on millets invited by the IYM, offer the potential to bring native millets out of obscurity. The IYM proposal was conceived with reference to better known millet crops established in agriculture of Eurasia (esp. Asia) and Africa, and introduced in limited degrees in other regions like North America. That focus is being framed by FAO in terms of "dryland small grains that contribute to food security and nutrition," which would logically include Panicum sonorum. One ideal outcome of the IYM in North America would be more attention and resources devoted to this grain (with respect to the communities and cultures of the people who have kept its cultivation alive). In terms of messaging about IYM in North America, the existence of species of Setaria and Panicum in this region that have been cultivated for food - and which rightly can be called "millets" - adds a unique dimension to the story of millets here. Can this be used to heighten awareness of and interest in millets in general? Don Don Osborn, PhD (East Lansing, MI, US) North American Millets Alliance don(a)milletsalliance.org bcc: Ms. Sarah Laskow, Sr. editor, The Atlantic, & author of the article referenced in note #1 Dr. Rob Myers, Dir., Ctr. for Regenerative Ag., U. Missouri & NCR-SARE Reg. Dir. of Extension Notes: 1. Sarah Laskow, "America's Lost Crops Rewrite the History of Farming: Our food systems could have been so different," The Atlantic, 1 Oct. 2022, https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2022/10/agricultural-revolution… 2. Jack Dekker, n.d. "The Foxtail (Setaria) Species-Group." http://agron-www.agron.iastate.edu/~weeds/PDF_Library/Jax_Pubs/FoxWSciRev7.… (this is likely the same article that the author published in Weed Science, Oct. 2003, 51(5): 641-656 https://www.jstor.org/stable/4046542 ) 3. E.O. Callen, 1965. "Food habits of some Pre-Columbian Mexican Indians." Economic Botany 19(4):335-343. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02904803 4. E.O. Callen. 1967. "The first New World cereal." American Antiquity *32*(4), 535-538 https://doi.org/10.2307/2694082 [NB- in his citation of this source, Dekker, footnote #2 above, mistakenly added an "s" after "cereal" in the title] 5. J.M.J. de Wet. 1992. "The three phases of cereal domestication." In: Grass evolution and domestication, G.P. Chapman (Ed.). Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, UK. pp. 176- 198. 6. C. Earle Smith, Jr. 1968. "The New World centers of origin of cultivated plants and the archaeological evidence." Economic Botany 22(3):253-266. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02861958 7. https://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Setaria_geniculata 8. Daniel F. Austin. 2006. "Fox-tail millets (Setaria: Poaceae)—Abandoned food in two hemispheres." Economic Botany 60(2), 143–158. https://doi.org/10.1663/0013-0001(2006)60[143:FMSPFI]2.0.CO;2 9. Gary Nabhan & J.M.J. de Wet. 1984. "Panicum sonorum in Sonoran Desert Agriculture." Economic Botany, 38(1), 65–82. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4254574 10. https://www.nativeseeds.org/pages/sonoran-panic-grass 11. Barney T. Burns. 2011. "A Short History of Panic Grass." Seedhead News, No. 109, Spring 2011, pp. 6-7. https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0157/0808/files/SeedheadNews109-2011-Spri… (Republished in 2015 at https://www.nativeseeds.org/blogs/blog-news/a-short-history-of-panic-grass ) 12. https://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Panicum_hirticaule 13. https://explorer.natureserve.org/Taxon/ELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.130251/Panicum_sono…

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Interesting definition/description of "millet(s), " plus comments
by Don Osborn 24 Oct '22

24 Oct '22

While I'm working on a couple of posts that are taking longer than expected (in that Pareto last 10%), here is an interesting definition/description of millets by archaeologist & professor of archaeobotany, Dorian Q. Fuller/1 from the Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology:/2 "Millet is an imprecise English term applied to a large number of smaller-grained, largely tropical cereals that are often distantly related. Millets tend to be small-seeded cereals, i.e., distinct from wheat, barley, oats, rice, and maize. Sorghum is sometimes included with millets (in Indian English it is the 'great millet'). Taxonomically speaking 'millet-grasses' refers to grasses in the Panicoid subfamily and the Paniceae tribe, but not all traditional millet crops are in this group. Finger millet (Eleusine coracana) and tef (Eragrostis tef) are in the Chloridoid subfamily. Although a few millet species have been cultivated in Europe, they are generally less important economically and culturally, leading to poor linguistic differentiation in European languages, e.g., French *millet*, German *hirse*, and Spanish *mijo*. "Millets have received far less research than the 'big' cereals (rice, wheat, and barley). Indeed statistics on millet production are very poor, ..." The above is all I have access to at this time. Some of the wording here might be adapted for press kits, I think. No arguments on the particulars of this excerpt, but some added info. * Current lists of millets also include members of the Andropogonae tribe of the Panicoid subfamily (Panicoideae). Namely sorghum (already mentioned by Prof. Fuller), and two less well known grains: Job's tears or adlay millet; and Taiwan oil millet. * Some sources apparently put kodo millet in the Paspaleae tribe of the Panicoid subfamily/3 * I really appreciate his mention of the linguistic dimension of this category, but the millets namespace in both French/4 and Spanish/5 are slightly more involved, as I explored on my intermittent blog last February. That I'm looking at and citing a work on archeology underscores the interdisciplinary & cross-specialization nature of our work. Don Don Osborn, PhD (East Lansing, MI, US North American Millets Alliance don(a)milletsalliance.org Notes: 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorian_Fuller 2. Fuller, D.Q. (2014). Millets: Origins and Development. In: Smith, C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0465-2_2181 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paspalum_scrobiculatum 4. https://donosborn.org/blog/2022/iyom2023-in-french-mils-et-ou-millets/ 5. https://donosborn.org/blog/2022/iyom2023-in-spanish-los-mijos/

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