The Southern African Development Community (SADC) Plant Genetic Resources Centre (SPGRC) is encouraging SADC citizens to embrace millets as nutritious food in line with the endorsement of the Governing Body of the Food and Agricultural Organisation- International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (FAO-ITPGRFA) .
In a statement to mark the year 2023 as the International Year of Millets (IYM), the SPGRC also encouraged food scientists to value-add millets and make them part and parcel of peoples’ daily meals. It further urged national gene banks to make available traditional millet varieties for use in breeding programmes, research, and direct consumption at household level to address nutritional gaps in the SADC Region.
The theme for the International Year of Millets was proposed at the UN General Assembly and endorsed by Members of the Governing Bodies of FAO, including the 160th Session of FAO Council and the 41st FAO Conference. This is because millets have proven to be climate resilient and highly nutritious yet still remain relatively undervalued, and under-utilised cereal crops.
Millets are a group of cereal grains that belong to the Poaceae family, commonly known as the grass family. Despite being widely perceived as crops in terminal decline in favour of maize, sorghum and millets were in fact among the first plants to be domesticated and still serve as a traditional staple food in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia with both continents constituting the vast majority (over 90%) of millet production worldwide. Compared to other cereals like maize and rice, millets have the ability to grow in dry and marginal environments clearly making it a crop with an important role in the future food and nutritional security.
Millets are often called "nutri-cereals" with multiple-use properties because of their high nutritional content, which includes protein, fibre, micronutrients and phytochemicals. Millet is a versatile foodstuff that contains at least 9% protein, a range of amino acids and more oil than maize and more digestible (11% fibre) than sorghum (6.7% fibre) as it contains no tannins, a bitter-tasting brown substance. Millet is consumed as a whole grain like rice, cracked or as a flour in flatbread, fermented foods, porridges, couscous, beverages and snacks. It is also a gluten-free seed grain, high in energy but with a low glycemic index (low GI) which is an important property in managing type 2 diabetes as it does not raise blood sugar rapidly. It is high in fat, protein, iron, zinc and phosphorus (P) making it essential for bone growth.
As an animal feed, millet is grown to produce silage, hay or directly grazed when green. As a fodder for animals, the seeds can be fed to poultry, the green plant used for grazing or used for silage and hay production. The dry plant material can also be used to weave baskets, for thatching and to build light fences especially in rural communities.
Millets are very resilient crops, highly suitable for cultivation under adverse and varying climatic conditions. However, despite these clear advantages of climate resilience and nutritional benefits, millets remain relatively undervalued and underutilised, with its production being on the decline in the SADC Region.
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