Ancient Crops, Modern Possibilities: A Study on the Potential for Millet Agriculture in the United States

Summary

Millets are among the world’s oldest crops. Unique characteristics such as their adaptation to high temperatures, drought conditions, marginal environments and low-input farming systems, make millets promising rotational in diverse agro-environments across the U.S. Millets could play a vital role in the diversification of cropping systems and provides a regionally available source of highly nutritious cereal grain.

Despite being a very early domesticated cereal crop, and a major food source in East Asia, South Asia, and Africa, millets now play a relatively minor role in most human diets and agricultural systems. In order to fully examine their potential role as alternative crops in the U.S., new and expanded research is needed in the fields of millet agronomy, breeding, nutrition, and food science. This paper presents the archaeological background of millet domestication and spread as well as lessons learned from field and greenhouse trials. Crop niche models evaluate how millets could be adaptive in the arid regions across the United States.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Seeds of the Past, Seeds of the Future: Papers in Honor of Steven A. Weber

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 16085