Drought-resistant millets could help Midwest survive climate change agdaily.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from agdaily.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The Midwest is known for its rows and rows of corn and soybeans that uniformly cover the landscape.But in central Missouri, farmer Linus Rothermich disrupts the usual corn and soybean rotation with Japanese millet. He has been growing it since 1993.“Golly, I have to think how far back that is,” he said. “I was a young man and I was looking for alternative crops to grow to make more money. We just weren’t making a lot of money in agriculture then. Compared to his corn and soybean crops, he spends a lot less on Japanese millet. Because its growing season is shorter, it fits perfectly into the rotation of the crops he already grows. It’s working so well for him that he wants to keep the grain to himself.“I have recommended it to other farmers, as long as it’s not my Japanese millet,” he joked, pointing out prices likely would drop if a lot of other farmers start growing it.But these humble grains soon may garner more attention after the United Nations declared 2023 the I
The United Nations has declared 2023 the International Year of Millets a type of small grain mostly grown in parts of Asia and Africa. The highly resilient and cost-friendly grains could make them the next crop for U.S. farmers in the midst of climate change.