From time to time I post on millets in other countries, near and far. Here's an update on a mention of Guyana, with reference also to Haiti.
Back in mid 2023, I shared a link to an item about an India- Guyana partnership to bring millets to the latter. See link and comments under #5 at https://lists.millets2023.space/pipermail/collab/2023-May/000164.html . Here's an update with additional info and comments. 1. A short video from the Guyana Dept. of Public Information in Jan. 2024 discusses 1300 acres under millets. No specific millets are discussed, but there are images of pearl millet and proso millet. The seed bags do not as far as I could ascertain (using Google image translate) say anything about the types of millet. See https://youtu.be/A7ABwxzOmq0 2. A 2024 news release by the Guyana Ministry of Agriculture entitled "Guyana surpasses target for millet cultivation– Min. Mustapha" indicates that these 1300 acres are at the Tacama Mega Farm along the Berbice River in Guyana's Region 10. See https://agriculture.gov.gy/2024/01/11/guyana-surpasses-target-for-millet-cul... 3. A 17 June 2024 article in Selina Wamucii News by Timothy Wahome entitled "Guyana’s millet production reaches 100% self-sufficiency" reports a successful harvest, and relates plans to expand cultivation in Guyana's regions 5, 9, and 10. See https://www.selinawamucii.com/news/2024/06/17/guyanas-millet-production-reac... 4. A 7 July 2025 article in the Guyana Times entitled "Successful Region 9 millet trial leads to expanded cultivation plan" discusses production of finger millet and barnyard millet. See https://guyanatimesgy.com/successful-region-9-millet-trial-leads-to-expanded... 5. A 16 June 2024 commentary in the Guyana Chronicle entitled "Consumer Concerns, with Pat Dial: Guyana Enters the Millet World" puts the introduction of millets into the context of Guyana's recent agriculture policy. It also brings up the potential of "millet" in Haiti, and in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) as a whole. See https://guyanachronicle.com/2024/06/16/guyana-enters-the-millet-world/ NB- millets are not unknown in Haiti, however - see https://lists.millets2023.space/pipermail/collab/2023-October/000335.html ) Geographical note: Guyana's region 5 is coastal northeast; region 10 is just to its south. Region 9 is in the interior southwest of the country. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regions_of_Guyana Summary and comments:
From the above, at least 4 millets have recently been tried in Guyana: pearl; proso; finger; and barnyard. The imprecision of most of the articles limits our ability to understand which millets are being planted, where, and with what results.
The main destination of grain millets appears to be as livestock feed. These recent articles seem to imply that cultivation of millets began with the sending of seeds of an unidentified selection of millets to Guyana in 2023. However the history may be a bit more complicated: * Jagannath V. Patil, Millets and Sorghum: Biology and Genetic Improvement (2017) p. 187 indicates that the National Agricultural Research and Extension Institute of Guyana had one accession of "barnyard millet" See: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Millets_and_Sorghum/bDy7DQAAQBAJ?hl=en&... * The "Checklist of the Plants of the Guianas (Guyana, Surinam, French Guiana)" 2nd ed., 1997, https://horizon.documentation.ird.fr/exl-doc/pleins_textes/divers20-10/01001... has: ** proso millet ("Panicum miliaceum L. [GU FG] [cultivated; naturalized?]") ** sorghum ("Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench [GU SU FG] [cultivated, sparingly naturalized]") ** kodo millet ("Paspalum scrobiculatum L. [SU FG] [cultivated; naturalized?]") ** foxtail millet ("Setaria italica (L.) P. Seauv. [FG] [naturalized?]") So, it may be that there was some cultivation of some millets before the project initiated in 2023 with seed from India. However, the policy commitment and scale of activity that the latter represents is a significant change. Don Osborn, PhD (East Lansing, MI, US) North American Millets Alliance