What is fonio? The food that Bill Gates says can end world hunger
This cereal originated from Africa more than 5,000 years ago. It needs little water for cultivation and is capable of growing on poor quality land.
Famine is one of the biggest problems we face as a society worldwide. According to the United Nations, a total of 783 million people were affected by this problem in 2023, and now approximately 45 million children suffer from severe malnutrition. Because of this, there have been some efforts to end hunger in the world.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, an organization of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, has been working for years to find solutions to alleviate the effects of malnutrition. On his last trip to Dakar in Senegal, he seems to have found a food capable of fighting hunger.
The billionaire was fascinated by fonio, a cereal native to the African continent that is considered one of the oldest foods in the world. This grain has been feeding families in West Africa for more than 5,000 years, much longer than any other cereal grown on the continent.
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Grain qualities
Fonio is a great source of protein, fiber, iron, zinc and several key amino acids. It is a great candidate to combat hunger since it needs little water to grow and is capable of doing so on poor quality land, even being able to rejuvenate the soil as time goes by.
Being a drought-resistant food, it can be of great help in those territories where rains do not occur. However, despite being a rapidly growing grain, the part that is eaten is surrounded by a very hard shell, whose elimination is a laborious process that requires a lot of time.
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Fonio processing plant
On his last trip to Senegal, Gates visited a fonio processing plant to observe the cultivation of this cereal up close. In this place the time needed to break the shell is reduced, thus increasing the profitability of the food. This places fonio as a possible solution to the famine.
There he held conversations with Laura Layousse, CEO of the African Agri-Food Company, who said that this new production chain does not affect local farmers, who are in charge of growing it, since the company buys the grain directly from them. In this way, both parties benefit.
In the plant, the food is treated in a more automated way and the possibility of marketing it throughout the world is increased. It is a cereal with significant potential to reduce hunger and alleviate the effects of malnutrition, especially in the younger population of the most disadvantaged countries.