LEISA 20.1
LEISA Magazine • 20.1 • March 2004
Fonio: a small grain with potential
Jean-François Cruz
Fonio (Digitaria exilis), a small cereal from West Africa, is much loved by
farmers and consumers because of its many advantages. Fonio has a short growing
season and is well adjusted to harsh environments. The cereal has excellent
culinary and nutritional properties. The only drawback is that the grains are
tiny and difficult to peel, which makes processing a tedious job. These difficulties
have reduced the crop to a marginal cereal. However, efforts are now being made
to develop equipment that will facilitate the processing of fonio.
Old and robust
Fonio is possibly the oldest indigenous cereal cultivated in West Africa. The
domestication of fonio seems to go back 7000 years, but the first references
to fonio as food date from the fourteenth century. The Dogons of Mali, an ancient
people, refer to the fonio seed as “the germ of the world”. They
believed that the whole universe emerged from the fonio seed – the smallest
object known.
Nowadays, fonio still grows in farmers’ fields over a vast area extending
from Senegal to Chad. Fonio is a staple food for many rural communities, especially
for communities in the mountainous areas of the Fouta Djalon in Guinea. Farmers
in Mali, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Senegal also cultivate the small
cereal. West African farmers mainly cultivate white fonio (Digitaria exilis),
which is also called fundi, findi, acha or “hungry rice”. In Nigeria,
farmers grow black fonio (Digitaria iburua) as well. In Guinea, farmers also
occasionally plant the so-called “fonio with large seeds” (Brachiaria
deflexa) but this is, in fact, a different species.
The production of fonio declined sharply in the 1960s but began to recover
twenty years later. The increase in production can be attributed to larger areas
being cultivated. Although average production per hectare remains relatively
low, it has remained consistent at 600 - 700 kg/ha. At present fonio is grown
on more than 380,000 ha and produces 250,000 tons of grain annually. Fonio supplies
food to several million people during the most difficult months of the year
when other food resources are scarce.
Fonio cropping cycles vary from 70 to 150 days depending on the variety. Varieties
with a very short cycle (70 - 85 days) allow the farmers to harvest early and
enable them to cover the critical “hunger” season before the major
food crops can be harvested. Farmers generally cultivate fonio on light sandy
or stony soils as the crop is not very demanding. The late varieties, in particular,
are well adjusted to poor soils. This small grass, which reaches heights of
30 - 80 cm, is very robust and can resist periods of droughts and heavy rains.
Tasty and healthy
In West Africa fonio is considered to be the tastiest of all cereals. Serving
fonio as a dish at festivals or important ceremonies is always a good choice
because of its fine and delicate taste. As a popular proverb says “Fonio
never embarrasses the cook”. Fonio is also known for its nutritional properties.
Although the protein content of fonio is similar or slightly lower than that
of other grains, it contains amino acids like methionine and cystine which are
essential to human health. These are often deficient in today’s major
cereals. As fonio is known to be easy to digest, it is traditionally recommended
for children, old people who cannot digest other cereals, sick people and for
people suffering from diabetes or stomach diseases. Local pharmacists also recommend
fonio for people who want to loose weight.
Fonio, regarded as a minor cereal for a long time and referred to as the “cereal
of the poor”, is attracting renewed interest in the urban areas of West
Africa because of its cooking and nutritional qualities. Agricultural policies
in the region are also changing in favour of traditional crops to try and decrease
dependency on imported food products.
Difficult processing
In order to meet the needs of urban households, small enterprises, set up by
artisans’ or women’s groups, have recently started to sell already-cleaned
fonio in the markets. In Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea and Senegal, small businesses
are marketing pre-cooked fonio packed in plastic bags of 500 grams or one kilo.
These products are distributed to groceries and supermarkets and are even exported
to Europe and the United States. However, the price of fonio prepared in this
way is high because the grain has to be prepared manually and this is a long
process.
Processing fonio is a difficult and time-consuming task because of the extremely
small size of the grain. One gram of fonio contains nearly 2000 grains and each
egg-shaped grain is only about 1 - 1.5 mm long. After threshing, the grain is
still surrounded by husks. This product is called “fonio paddy”
or “raw fonio”. Like rice, processing paddy into whitened fonio
is done in two stages. The first stage, known as dehusking or peeling, involves
removing the husks from the seed to obtain the dehusked grain. The second stage,
known as whitening, aims to remove the bran (the pericarp and the germ) from
the grain. Dehusking and whitening of the grain is done by hand and require
four to five successive beatings using a pestle and a mortar alternated with
as many winnowings. The productivity of this work is very low. It takes nearly
one hour to peel just one or two kilos of fonio paddy. Moreover, in order to
obtain a quality product, all dirt and sand must be eliminated. This means that
the product should be washed several times which also adds to the amount of
time and effort required for preparation. Thus, mechanizing the processing and
the cleaning of fonio is essential both to reduce the painstaking work for women
and to improve the quality and availability of the marketed product.
Mechanization
To make fonio more competitive on the market in terms of quality and price,
it is necessary to improve grain processing techniques at small company and
women’s group level by modernizing existing and developing new equipment.
To meet these needs, a regional project has been initiated that focuses on improving
post-harvest technologies for fonio (1999 - 2004). The project is being carried
out by CIRAD in collaboration with the national research institutes of Mali
(IER) Guinea (IRAG) and Burkina Faso (IRSAT).
Before the project, there was little equipment available to process fonio and
the equipment that did exist did not fully satisfy the users. It was, therefore,
essential to improve and develop equipment that would make it possible to mechanize
as much of the post-harvest operations as possible.
The CIRAD project carried out several technical studies aimed at improving
equipment. These studies have so far led to an adaptation of a thresher and
to the development of a dehusker - GMBF type Engelberg - that has an average
capacity of 100 kilograms per hour. In addition, cleaning equipment has also
been developed including a channel for winnowing, drum sieves and a machine
to wash out sand. Some of this equipment has been installed in small existing
companies or enterprises operating in rural and urban areas, such as Bamako
(Mali), Bobo Dioulasso (Burkina Faso) and Labé (Guinea). It has already
helped users to process dozens of tons of fonio. Productivity has increased
enormously and the quality of the product is high. An analysis of the cooking
qualities of the fonio processed by the GMBF dehusker has been evaluated and
found to be very satisfactory. The fonio processed with the machine had a better
quality than traditionally whitened fonio: the germs had been removed, the product
swells well when cooked and its consistency was smooth.
Training
But the project would not be complete without training and provision of adequate
information to the various stakeholders involved, including manufacturers, those
processing the crop, small business groups and the producers. The assistance
of local manufacturers is necessary to ensure that the equipment developed can
be constructed locally and this is being followed up. Together, these initiatives
should make it possible to mechanize the processing of fonio and, in this way,
contribute to the revival of this long neglected cereal.
Jean-François Cruz. CIRAD-CA. 73, avenue J.F. Breton,
34398 Montpellier,
Cedex 5, France. E-mail: jean-francois.cruz@cirad.fr