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@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