What cereals are grown in Africa?

Cereals are plants that yield grains. Grains are used to feed both man and beast.

· Certain cereals are grown in almost all parts of Africa. These are mainly millet, sorghum, maize and rice. Millet and sorghum are grown in savanna country where it is dry. Maize is grown everywhere, in savanna country and in forest country. Rice used to be grown only in certain regions. But now more and more rice is eaten in Africa and it is grown everywhere.

· Other cereals are less known. They are grown only in some regions. Fonio is grown in west Africa. Finger millet (Eleusine) is grown in Zaire, Rwanda and Burundi. Teff is grown in the mountains of Ethiopia. Wheat is a cereal of cold countries, but it grows well in regions near deserts such as Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad, as well as in hilly regions like eastern Zaire, Rwanda, Burundi.

In this book/et we shall deal chiefly with sorghum, millet and maize. We shall not speak about rice because there are two booklets on rice, one on upland rice and one on wet paddy or swamp rice. We shall deal briefly with fonio, finger millet and wheat.