Digitaria exilis (White Fonio) and Digitaria iborua (Black Fonio) are members of the same family of millets with a great potential to improve nutrition, foster rural development and support sustainable land use. These grains are the smallest among all millet species. Fonio has been cultivated in West Africa for more than 5000 years. It remains an important staple in the region because of its high nutritional value, short growing cycle, and reliable harvest even in the face of drought. Fonio grains can be boiled, baked or brewed into beer. Its adaptability to erratic climatic conditions, combined with the international market’s craving for more healthy grain substitutes has brought fonio to the limelight. Thanks to the work done by chefs and entrepreneurs in the creation of value added products and recipes for the urban market, fonio is gaining increased popularity.
White fonio is an herbaceous annual that grows to 30- 80 cm tall in an erect fashion. The grain is very small and matures quickly, coming in a variety of colors from white to yellow to purple. Black fonio is similar to white fonio, standing taller yet producing a smaller grain. Fonio’s extensive root system can reach over 1 meter down into the soil, allowing it to reach deep-buried nutrients and water reserves.
Fonio is the staple crop for millions of people in West Africa, in countries such as Mali, Senegal, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Togo and Guinea. The consumption of Fonio has an ancient history in the region, dating back 5,000 years. Fonio is often prized as a sacred crop, used in feasts and special events such as weddings. The Dogon of Mali call fonio the “seed of the universe,” believing the world was created from a grain of fonio. Fonio has a higher carbohydrate content than maize, sorghum and other millets and contains more protein than rice. Fonio has high amounts, more per-serving than any other grain, of nutrients such as iron, calcium, zinc, magnesium and manganese and the two essential amino acids cysteine and methionine.
Around 700,000 tons of fonio are cultivated in West Africa every year. Fonio grows quickly; some varieties can be harvested five weeks after sowing. This allows the grain to support the nutritional needs of families in the ‘hungry season,’ before other staple cereal crops have matured. Fonio harvest and processing are traditionally intensive and time consuming tasks, still done mostly by hand. Recently new appropriate technologies have mechanized threshing, dehulling and washing processes. Fonio is prized for its ability to grow in marginal and depleted soil conditions, adapted to the desertified and sandy soils of the Sahel region with no chemical inputs. Fonio is incredibly resilient, able to withstand dry and tropical conditions, a large range of temperatures and altitudes, and poor sandy, rocky or acidic soils.