Thank you, Gary. Good points, all. I started this reply last month, and am just coming back to it now. First, my general objective has been to convey some estimates of grain production by millet crop to give some idea to the general public about the contours of this production. Such approximations can, I think, be helpful starting places for people not familiar with the sector - and perhaps also for experts. Hopefully discussions like this can promote better data gathering, organizing, and more reporting. Ideally, we should be separating out production of each grain millet systematically in reporting, which would be much more useful than the current system of mixed terms and methods, with categories often being collapsed (i.e., various different millet species lumped together as "millet"). Forage production and use as cover crops is also important, especially in North America. Perhaps acreage planted, and for what purposes, should be a separate set of estimates from those of grain production? In other words, separate out the mixed uses, to the extent possible. Regarding rough estimates in general: I've similarly come up with a "back of napkin" estimate that sorghum growers number roughly 10x the number of proso millet growers, and the latter are about 10x the number of teff growers (perhaps as many as 100). In another discussion, you questioned the low estimate of grain teff growers in the US, which I estimated based on reports of producers contracting with two major marketers - Maskal Teff and Selam Foods. How many others might there be? (We have one in Michigan, supplying the Teffola line of products, for example, but how many farms are producing grain teff without a guaranteed buyer?) The picture may be confused a bit by the fact that teff is fairly widely grown for forage and hay. Regarding earlier sources, on which global figures cited today seem to rely, I share your skepticism. However there is not much else to go by, and in my mind at least, a need to have some starting point. The estimates I relied on for grain production are certainly also problematic in other ways you mention - including (1) unreported production and (3) under-reporting. World statistics rely on country reporting, and this is, as you note, a mixed bag. Many years ago, I was more familiar with forestry reporting, also aggregated by FAO, and there were some similar issues. Regarding mixed data (your 2) and collapsed categories (mentioned above), I'd again advocate for reporting individual millets with perhaps an additional "Millets, unspecified or mixed" category - never just "Millet." Thinking back, one ideal outcome of the International Year of Millets (2023) might have been some project or commitment to more accurate reporting and aggregation of global production figures for grain millets, plus for areas planted. To that end, a reporting framework could be created to harmonize categories used and help improve the accuracy of figures. Where we are now, a starting point would be to communicate with major stakeholders (beginning with FAO) to ascertain interest in this idea. Don DO, EL, MI, US NAMA On Mon, Feb 10, 2025 at 11:49 AM Gary Wietgrefe via Collab < collab@lists.millets2023.space> wrote:
Thank you Don for investigating elusive millet production.
Ancient crops, like millet, are not considered industrial crops, therefore I am extremely cautious quoting production numbers, especially by type of millet. At least two of your sources date to 1993 and would have used prior sources. No matter how many times those numbers are quoted, even decades later, I consider them highly suspect. For several reasons:
1.) *Unreported millet*: Mongols have lived on proso millet for thousands of years and still do. The Soviet Union production of millet in Mongolia from 1940-1990 was "Zero!" Though obviously not true, Soviet State Farms's production goals did not include millet, so it was left unreported. Mongolian proso varieties were compared to Russian and varieties of U.S. proso I sent to Mongolia for research in the late 1990s. See (PDF) Ancient Proso Millet and the Twentieth Century Survival of Mongolia <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358270886_Ancient_Proso_Millet_and_the_Twentieth_Century_Survival_of_Mongolia> .
Another example is Canada which produces proso millet and sorghum, yet the UN's FAO reports NO millet or sorghum produced in Canada. See FAOSTAT <https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/QCL> ( https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/QCL). Those are crops not reported by Statistics Canada, and I suspect therefore are not reported by the UN.
2.) *Mixed data*: Production data collected on millets sometimes include sorghum, consequently it is not reliable. See UN's FAO data. FAOSTAT <https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/QCL> ( https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/QCL). Note that since the 1960s (FAO's reporting period) Canada and Mongolia are not even listed as a millet producers.
3.) *Under reporting*: By far most acreage of millets produced in the U.S. is not reported by USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service. Millet grain production volume since the late 1990s only lists one millet produced for grain, proso, and only reports 481,000 acres of proso production for 2024 in three states (Colorado, Nebraska, and South Dakota). However, another branch of USDA (Farm Service Agency) reports over forty states (971,443 total acreage) planting proso, foxtail, pearl, Japanese, teff and "common.". Keep in mind, only farms that seek government program payments report to FAS which generally includes millets planted for forage, cover crops, game farms, and wildlife uses. See FAS kmWMJUc631qPEbuuKeWH | Farm Service Agency <https://www.fsa.usda.gov/documents/kmwmjuc631qpebuukewh>, compared to NASS page 32 in cropan25.pdf <https://downloads.usda.library.cornell.edu/usda-esmis/files/k3569432s/nk324887m/qn59s0097/cropan25.pdf> ( https://downloads.usda.library.cornell.edu/usda-esmis/files/k3569432s/nk3248... ).
3.) *Uses*: UN's FAO is mainly concerned about "Food" production, hense their name (Food & Agricultural Organization). FAO is likely the most common source of worldwide and individual country data. Consequently, millet uses for livestock fodder, grazing, erosion control, and wildlife habitat is not reported by the UN.
Without countries reporting actual millet acres, including the U.S., my advice is do not rely on publicly reported millet statistics when estimating millet's actual annual production.....Gary Wietgrefe
On Sun, Feb 9, 2025 at 5:01 AM <collab-request@lists.millets2023.space> wrote:
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Today's Topics:
1. Quantifying global production of grain millets by crop (Don Osborn)
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Message: 1 Date: Sat, 8 Feb 2025 21:25:04 -0500 From: Don Osborn <don@milletsalliance.org> To: "collab@lists.millets2023.space" <collab@lists.millets2023.space> Subject: [Collab] Quantifying global production of grain millets by crop Message-ID: < CA+RHibW7bXbFWtT99813uqLUei7XiaCsRUQPtJgfZ+nbwUgbgQ@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Trying to get clear current estimates of global production of various millets is not easy. First of all, current statistics gathered by USDA and by FAOSTAT collapse all millets ("grains surname millet") under a single "millet" category. Secondly, some of the sources that have figures on production of one or another or several millets are two or three decades old. Then there are sources that are behind paywalls.
In any event, from some research on the matter, I got the impression several years ago that the production levels of the main 4 or 5 (including sorghum) millets followed this pattern: Sorghum, alone, had double the production - around 60 million metric tons (MT) per year - of all the other millets combined - around 30 million MT/yr. Pearl millet then had half that amount, or around 15 million MT. The remainder was split among - in order - foxtail millet, proso millet, finger millet, and all the rest. Figures for the rest might be on local and national levels but might take some time to aggregate.
Anyway, I put together a list of some sources with estimates, below. These are for millets (without sorghum), pearl millet, foxtail millet, proso millet, and finger millet. Although these are from different times and sources, they tend to support the proportions indicated above:
MILLETS, TOGETHER, WITHOUT SORGHUM (28-31 million MT?)
"The annual world production of millets accounts for about 30,463,642 t."
Pexov? Kalinov? J, T??ska J, Ho?ej?? K. "Comparison of the Main Constituents in Two Varieties of Proso Millet Using GC-MS." *Foods*. 2023 Jun 7;12(12):2294. https://doi.org/10.3390/foods12122294 . PMID: 37372504; PMCID: PMC10297711. Quoting in footnote, FAOSTAT, Food and Agriculture Organization of The United Nations, Rome. [(accessed on 30 July 2022)]. Available online: https://fenix.fao.org/faostat/internal/en/#data/QCL.
"Millet 2024. World Production: 31,073 (1000 MT) (PS&D Online updated 01/2025)"
USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, FAS Home / IPAD Home / Crop Explorer / Commodity Explorer / Millet (accessed 8 Feb. 2025)
https://ipad.fas.usda.gov/cropexplorer/cropview/commodityView.aspx?cropid=04...
"Developing countries, mainly in Asia and Africa, account for about 94 percent of global output, estimated at some 28 million tons (1992-94 average, Table 1). Of this, pearl millet accounts for about 15 million tons, foxtail millet for 5 million tons, proso millet for 4 million tons and finger millet for over 3 million tons."
The World Sorghum and Millet Economies: Facts, Trends and Outlook, FAO & ICRISAT, 1996 https://www.fao.org/4/w1808e/w1808e0c.htm
PEARL MILLET (15-18 million MT?)
"Pearl millet accounts for almost half of global millet production."
"The Global Agro-Ecological Zoning, version 4. Crop profile: Pearl and Foxtail millets"
https://s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/data.gaezdev.aws.fao.org/crop_profiles/GA... (accessed 8 Feb. 2025; this is apparently connected with https://gaez.fao.org/ )
"According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), in 2019, global pearl millet production was approximately 17.9 million metric tons."
"Pearl millet," by Lynette Abbott, Cultivation December 8, 2024 https://cultivationag.com/pearl-millet/
FOXTAIL MILLET (5-6 million MT?)
"Total production of foxtail millet is around 5.7 ? 10^6 t of grain per year"
M.I. Gomez, S.C. Gupta, "Millets," in B. Caballero, ed., *Encyclopedia of Food Sciences and Nutrition* (2nd Ed.), Academic Press, 2003, Pages 3974-3979, ISBN 9780122270550, https://doi.org/10.1016/B0-12-227055-X/00791-4. ( https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B012227055X007914). This article is reproduced from *Encyclopaedia of Food Science, Food Technology and Nutrition*, Copyright 1993, Academic Press.
PROSO MILLET (4-5 million MT?)
"Proso ranks third after pearl millet and foxtail millet in terms of total global millet production, about 5 ? 10^6 t of grain per year."
M.I. Gomez, S.C. Gupta, "Millets," in B. Caballero, ed., *Encyclopedia of Food Sciences and Nutrition* (2nd Ed.), Academic Press, 2003, Pages 3974-3979, ISBN 9780122270550, https://doi.org/10.1016/B0-12-227055-X/00791-4. ( https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B012227055X007914). This article is reproduced from *Encyclopaedia of Food Science, Food Technology and Nutrition*, Copyright 1993, Academic Press.
FINGER MILLET (3-5 million MT?)
"With an estimated global annual planting area of 4-4.5 million hectares and a total production of 5 million tons of grain, finger millet plays a pivotal role in ensuring food security and sustenance for millions of people."
"Finger Millet: A Story of Health. Crop Chronicles: 13 Nov 2024," Crop Trust, https://www.croptrust.org/story-articles/finger-millet-a-story-of-health/
If you have any other sources or figures for any of the above, please let us know.
Don Osborn, PhD (East Lansing, MI, US) North American Millets Alliance