Opportunities for Millets 2026-2027
Source: North American Millets Alliance (NAMA) Immediate Release: March 16, 2026
Supply status of various millets for 2026: Processors who want to incorporate a specific millet into their product lines need to know what millets are available in North America.1 Except for field run (a.k.a. bin run) proso, it is highly recommended that processors and users contract supplies from reliable seed suppliers by May 2026 and schedule deliveries by September 2026.2
Since various millets will be harvested throughout North America in the fall of 2026, food and beverage processors and non-seed users should commit to pounds intended to be used before seed is treated for planting. To ensure high quality food products, it is highly recommended to also use NAMA’s
Proso Millet Grading Standards– https://millets2023.space/ProsoStandards.html and https://youtu.be/AbLGbhi1g3g?si=0bTUwOoOJ3nHSSKT.
(Note: Grain and seed millets are produced and stored the same way, except for hybrid pearl millet. Consequently, seed millets can be processed for edible consumption before any storage or seed treatments have been applied.)
Other millets: Eleusine coracana, also known as finger millet or Ragi, is in experimental stage development in the U.S. Digitaria exilis also known as Fonio, Panicum sumatrense better known as Little millet, and Paspalum scrobiculatum often referred to as Kodo are not produced in North America.
Notes:
- “Millet” is a generic term similar to “grain,” and is applied to as many as 20 separate crop species. The six presented in this table are significant crops in North America. Sorghum is often included among the millets, but its much more widely grown with numerous varieties, and as such it is better analyzed separately.
- Always contract using the trade name. Scientific name is recommended with a millet like Japanese that has more than one species or to eliminate species confusion
- These suggested trade names are based on the commonly used English name, or suggested as more suitable for optimal marketing purposes. It is anticipated that some of these may change.
- The term “foxtail” is problematic in American agriculture, as it also refers to a weedy grass. “Italian millet” is an established, but less commonly used name for Setaria italica (despite the name, the grain has ancient roots in China, which today produces more of it than any other country). “Xiaomi” (Mandarin Chinese) is familiar in the Chinese-American community, which Is a significant market for this grain, and “kangni” is a Hindi name that would be recognizable in the Indian-American community.
- “Bajra” is a name for pearl millet that is widely used in India, and is familiar in the Indian-American community, which is a significant market for this grain.
- The term “barnyard millet” is more familiar internationally. It, and in the US, “Japanese millet,” are also used for a closely-related species, Echinochloa frumentacea, which is also edible. The latter is distinguished internationally as “Indian barnyard millet,” but in the US is sometimes also called “billion-dollar grass.”
It’s interesting to see the detailed breakdown of millet availability for 2026-2027. Given that finger millet, fonio, little millet, and kodo millet are not currently produced in North America, are there any initiatives or research efforts underway to explore their cultivation there in the future?
OmniaKey
Thank you for the comment and question. I hope Gary won’t mind my jumping in with what info I have – hopefully he can add more depth.
* Finger millet has had some research as a potential forage for dairy cattle, about 10 years ago in New Mexico and western Texas – see my summary at https://lists.millets2023.space/archives/list/collab@lists.millets2023.space/message/Q2374MXEHCEJSYGBM2B6DZXVYU6DJCZP/ . There are ongoing projects at Iowa State University and at Mississippi State University. We should be posting about those efforts in the near future. We were also in communication with a small commercial effort in Northern California to grow finger millet for grain, using whole finger millet grain packaged for sale as food – but it evidently didn’t work out well. So, there is interest in this crop, but IMO , its potential merits a lot more attention and research funding.
* I’m only aware of minimal efforts to experiment with fonio, for example in Michigan a few years ago, where grain and forage production were evaluated. We’re gathering information. (Worth noting that a close relative of fonio was brought from Europe to the US as a forage and possibly grain crop in the early 1800s – while there are at least 2 varieties of that grown for animal forage, it is not used for grain, and in any event is better known these days as large crabgrass.)
* Little millet: An Indo-Canadian research team recently mapped its genome – and important milestone. I believe some field trials were done in Canada (need to verify). It is o course closely related to proso millet, which of course is grown, especially in Colorado, South Dakota, and Nebraska.
* Kodo millet, unfortunately, has become a weed, classified in various locales in the US (and globally) as a “noxious weed.” I’m not aware of any research on it.