Millets Feed the World

Like the family of pulse crops, millets are a diverse group of small-grain cereals. They were among the first plants to be domesticated, and still serve as a staple crop for millions of farmers.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (UNFAO) has declared 2023 to be International Year of Millets, because they are nutrient-dense, grow on poor soils with little inputs, and are disease and pest-tolerant or resistant. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) refers to millets as “super-grains: naturally gluten-free, nutritionally dense and a rich source of protein, fibre and essential minerals like iron and zinc.”

Outside of Africa and South Asia, millets aren’t common in human diets, but this is starting to change. Ancient grains are gaining popularity among consumers seeking nutrient dense foods, rather than ultra-processed and industrially-grown foods.

Modern grains were bred for yield and harvestability. Improving those traits involved sacrificing nutrient density and as a result, today’s mainstream rice, bread, oatmeal and pasta are lacking some micronutrients and trace minerals that are essential in human nutrition.

Over time, trace mineral levels can be managed in grain crops and made available to the plants in the growing season. Normal soil chemistry and nutrient ratios, disrupted and out of balance by repeated crop input applications, can be restored and/or replaced.

To learn more about how this works, check out the new course Foliar Nitrogen, which dives deep into the practice of spoon-feeding crops the nutrition needed at specific growth stages.

Marketing Nutrition in Grain Crops

If growing nutritious food (as opposed to a high-yielding commodity) is the goal in farming, subbing out wheat for ancient grains is the place to start. Snacktivist Foods, a U.S. food CPG startup, is tapping into this emerging market segment with leading-edge messaging, data validation and supply chain origination, on a line of baking mixes that are millet-based and naturally gluten-free.

According to founder Joni Kindwall-Moore, companies on the front line of emerging food trends are seeing a paradigm shift in consumer thinking around label claims, beyond ‘free-from’ to ‘full-of’. People seeking nutrient-dense foods want it validated and the ingredients traced back to healthy soil.

Marketing Safety in Commodity Grain

With commodity bulk grain, safety has traditionally been managed by sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) standards specified in international trade agreements, which for the most part were designed to prevent the import of invasive species. More and more now though, grain buyers around the world are adding in new requirements to test shipments for heavy metals and pesticide residues.

These new lab testing costs and delays in document approvals fall to the traders to manage, even though the source of contamination is in the field. Grain purchase contract terms attempt to police it through affidavits that farmers sign off on, but rarely validate with actual data on field activities.

Identifying the Source to Capture the Market

As long as the supply chain between the fields and the grocery store shelves remains opaque, it will be largely impossible to track the source of both contaminants and nutrient density in foods. Greenwashing is abundant and obvious at all levels of the supply chain.

Gluten-free is perhaps the first claim that has solved for clean labeling and origination – because if it hadn’t, people could literally die. Now, in addition to marketing gluten-free as a safety feature, ancient grains like millets can offer nutrient density, and are receiving a boost from the International Year to do so.

According to the Oldways Whole Grains Council, the UN’s declaration of International Year of Quinoa in 2013 saw sales and recognition soar. In the years after, cultivation of the crop expanded, along with new businesses across the supply chain, and regular consumers around the world.