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Finger millet

Finger millet is an annual plant widely grown as a cereal in the arid areas of Africa and Asia. Finger millet is originally native to the Ethiopian Highlands.
Although statistics on individual millet species are confused, and are sometimes combined with sorghum, it is estimated that finger millet is grown on approximately 38,000 square kilometres.

Nutritive value of Ragi per 100 g of Finger millet
Protein 7.3 g
Fat 1.3 g
Carbohydrate 72 g
Minerals 2.7 g
Calcium 3.44 g
Fibre 3.6 g

Common names for finger millet
Sri Lanka: Kurakkan
Tamil: Aariyam
Hindi: Rag
Nepal: Koddo

Harvesting

Once the cereal plants have grown their seeds, they have completed their life cycle. The plants die and become brown and dry. As soon as the parent plants and their seed kernels are reasonably dry, harvest can begin.


Indigenous Rice Farming in Sri Lanka

Production of Cereals

The warm season cereals are grown in tropical lowlands year round and in temperate climates during the frost free season. Rice is commonly grown in flooded fields, though some strains are grown on dry land. Other warm climate cereals, such as sorghum, are adapted to arid conditions.

Introduction to Cereal

Cereals such as rice, wheat and maize are members of the grass family and they are particularly important to humans because of their role as staple food crops in many areas of the world. Cereals are also used to produce animal feed, oils, starch, flour, sugar, syrup, processed foods, malt, alcoholic beverages, gluten and renewable energy. Grasses are believed to have evolved over 60-70 million years ago. The sequencing of the rice genome provided the first reference genome for the grasses.