In the Bowls of Millions
Ethiopia & sorghum
During my recent visit to Ethiopia, I learned about the nation’s ambitious efforts to fight poverty by increasing farm productivity. Those efforts are focused in part on a cereal crop that is almost unknown in the developed world, but that is a major lifeline for much of Africa and Asia.
Sorghum is the world’s fifth most important cereal in terms of the land used to grow it and the volume produced.
Sorghum is an especially important crop and diet staple in poor countries.
Other grains are unsuitable in areas that get little rainfall, that are subject to drought or where irrigation is not possible. That’s where sorghum is a lifesaver.
Sorghum is widely grown both for food and as a feed grain.
On my recent trip to Ethiopia, I learned about efforts to help poor farmers improve their crop yields. I got to attend a sorghum demonstration at the Melkassa Agricultural Research Station.
In Africa’s poorest regions, people still grind sorghum and other cereals by hand, much as their ancestors did.
Here a girl shakes a tray of sorghum to prepare it for use in making Injera, a sort of pancake. Consumed in many ways, sorghum and millets are a major source of calories and protein for millions of people in Africa and Asia.
Malting and brewing sorghum produce lager and stout, often referred to as clear beer, as opposed to traditional African opaque beer. Clear beer has been brewed commercially in Africa since the late 1980s.
