Sorghum: The Plant that Keeps On Giving
FIGHTING CLIMATE CHANGE WITH FOOD
This series is a collaboration between Goya & Greenpeace. Writers, researchers and activists explore what sustainability looks like out in the field, and as an extension, in your kitchen. From seed libraries and their importance in the face of climate change, to how the cultivation of ragi is woven into the needs of soil, livestock and nutrition; finding alternative uses for spent grain in the microbrewery capital of India, and offering insight into building your own toolkit for gauging sustainability, this series offers a slice of what sustainable, organic agriculture and consumption in India looks like today.
To learn more on sustainability, organic farming and the impact-driven work of Greenpeace in the field, click here.
If there was an order to the chaos I witnessed, it was definitely lost on me. The table in the middle was doused with flour as the women seated around it furiously patted on small dough balls, beating them into perfectly round rotis. At some point, one stopped and slid her creation in the direction of another, who continued to add a few more taps. Some rotis moved in a logical manner from one person to another, while others slid in random directions. But no matter which way they went, they eventually came by the person seated at the hot plate and the stove.
Using a cotton cloth, she flipped the rotis on the plate before subjecting them to some direct heat and finally depositing them in the baskets placed nearby. The rotis were quickly whisked away for the hungry customers outside, where they were served with a generous dollop of butter. Standing in the crowded kitchen of a popular eatery in Bangalore, I had just seen the dizzying process of making North Karnataka's staple flatbread, jolada roti!
Jola, jawari, jonna, juara, cholum, solum — you may know it by different names depending on where you are from, but for all the familiarity, sorghum, as it is commonly known, remains shrouded in mystery for many of us.
“It is generally the trend that we see,” explains Sreedevi Lakshmikutty, co-founder of Biobasics, a Coimbatore-based online organic store that provides sustainable markets for farmers and educates people on the importance of biodiversity. “Sorghum, pearl millets and ragi are often called the greater millets. While people love to talk about sorghum, the consumption never really matches the buzz,” she says.
Earlier that morning, Lakshmikutty shared an image on the Biobasics Instagram handle of a sabudana-like dish made with round grains that had a hint of red. She asked people to guess its name. Her farmers call it irumbu solam (iron sorghum) owing to its high iron content; she explains while talking about the Biobasics red sorghum variety, which was sprouted, cooked and sautéed in her kitchen for a refreshing twist. “I just wanted to show people how versatile sorghum is, and how it can be used for many of the common dishes, like khichdi and upma,” she adds.
Sorghum is the fifth most important cereal crop globally, grown for food, animal feed and ethanol production, among other purposes. In FY 2021, it was the seventh most cultivated grain in India and we produced 4.78 million metric tonnes of sorghum.
A 2018 comparative study found that replacing rice and maize on the field with sorghum, finger millet, or pearl millet reduced irrigation water demand by 33 per cent. Other studies have also highlighted sorghum as a suitable crop for various challenging conditions. Heat, drought, flooding, soil salinity — you name it, and sorghum will not let you down. What's more, sorghum cultivation leaves a smaller carbon footprint compared to grains like bajra and rice. In a nutshell, sorghum is the ideal candidate for a climate-adaptive crop.
Despite this, sorghum cultivation faces several challenges. Lakshmikutty succinctly summarises the core issue and says that sorghum is often grown by only marginal farmers. “Unlike paddy, various hurdles prevent farmers from committing to large-scale sorghum cultivation with a bigger goal to invest in the crop,” she adds.
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A grain of African origin, it is believed that sorghum reached the Indian shores around 1,000 BC as part of the provisions that seamen from East Africa carried in their ships. India is considered to be sorghum’s secondary origin centre, and the earliest evidence of domesticated sorghum was also found here, dating back to 2000 BCE. A 2019 study by the ICAR- Indian Institute of Millet Research (IIMR), Hyderabad, reveals India's rich sorghum history by characterising 139 traditional sorghum varieties across seven states. Names like irungu cholam from Tamil Nadu, used in porridge making and kodumurugu jola from Karnataka, used for making ladoos, highlight how the grain is steeped in local food culture. Sadly, over the last 50 years, sorghum cultivation has steadily declined.
Unlike traditional rice or millet varieties, sorghum's nuances largely remain unknown, and Laxmi Lokur, a third-generation farmer from the Udikeri village of Karnataka, is working hard to change that. Sharing examples of local sorghum varieties like neer jola, which can grow well in abundant water conditions and yellinjola which is ideal for making popcorn and used as an offering during the Naga Panchami festival, Lokur shares that each variety served a specific purpose both on the field and the plate.
Lokur explains that farmers grew sorghum for themselves, using the grain for food and the plant for fodder. But with changing dietary practices, diminishing domestic livestock, loss of traditional recipes and lesser gains, many farmers prefer to purchase the meagre amounts of sorghum they now need.
“It is an extremely farmer-friendly crop and barely needs our attention. We usually grow it during the winter months, and water that has percolated the soil now is sufficient for its growth,” she adds. Apart from cultivating the grain for more than 15 years now, Lokur is also trying to preserve some of the traditional sorghum varieties.
“There was a joy to sorghum cultivation and families would spend time on the field together. You see all that is slowly changing,” she adds.
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As much as sorghum sounds like a magic bullet of a grain, it is not impervious to the effects of climate change. Dr Vilas Toanpi, Former Director of the IIMR emphasises that understanding the location-specific challenges of cultivating sorghum will help us carve a safer future for it.
Rabi sorghum panicles | Image by Dr Vilas Tonapi
Dr Tonapi explains that sorghum is cultivated during both rainy and post-rainy seasons in India, known as kharif and rabi sorghum. The decrease in sorghum cultivation is often associated with the kharif sorghum crops.
“Monsoons have shifted, and June sowing no longer happens in June, but has moved to July. Also, erratic rains are impacting harvests. The grains lose their quality because of molds, and farmers hardly make any profits from such crops. This forces them to seek other alternatives,” he shares.
IIMR is working on addressing issues that sorghum is facing and is developing shorter-duration, pest-resistant crops to aid farmers. “Because these are climate-dependent factors, an escape mechanism is essential. This will help enhance the area under cultivation and create greater impact,” Dr Tonapi says.
Sorghum, he stresses, is a plant that can give economic returns to everyone involved. Besides food and fodder, it has immense potential in biofuel production. The institute has developed varieties and hybrids suited for this application while also providing the technology for it. “But the biggest reason we should be investing more in sorghum is that it is a highly nutritious grain that can provide food security with lesser inputs,” says Dr Tonapi.
IIMR has also worked on value addition by developing sorghum-based convenience foods and a cost-effective beer. Additionally, researchers from the Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute in Maharashtra are also working with sweet sorghum (varieties with high sugar content in their stalks) to manufacture syrup, jaggery ethanol, as well as paper from its fibre.
As the scientific community continues to champion this grain, farmers like Lokur are conducting local events to educate people on traditional dishes that can be made using sorghum. Called ‘Hurda Party’ — after the dish made with immature sorghum grains cooked in mud pits using charcoal — the event invites people across age groups to participate in a day of activities and some delicious food. The event aims to get more children on the sorghum bandwagon.
At the Hurda Party, to encourage interest in sorghum
Sorghum khichdi by Sreedevi at Biobasics
While Lokur is unearthing traditional recipes, home-run food startup Four Thirty is giving sorghum a new avatar, making the grain approachable to a wider audience. On their website, one can find options like masala, chilli cheese and peri jowar pops. Run by mother-daughter duo Savita and Yatika Nagpal, Yatika shares that the aim was to create healthy, gluten-free alternatives for snacking, and grains like sorghum fit the bill perfectly. “It can be tedious for people to keep different flour varieties in their house and find ways to use them. Also, we have seen that people really like this approach. They know that they are eating something healthy, but it is also fun and delicious,” she says.
And in the middle of this equation are people like Lakshmikutty and Ruchi Jain of TARU Naturals — a grassroots initiative to provide sustainable value chains for small-scale farmers across India. While Lakshmikutty is constantly sharing interesting bits of information through social media, on the TARU Naturals page, Jain gives people a glimpse of a sorghum farmer's world. TARU Naturals receives its sorghum from farmer Tushar Shirke of Mandhar village in Maharashtra. As we discuss sorghum’s benefits for a dystopian future where drought is constant and climate-adaptive grains take centre stage, Shirke lives it every day. His village has limited access to water and wells are constantly running dry. The sorghum that grows on his field is stone-ground by TARU Naturals and makes its way to urban households across the country. Somewhere, at this very moment, a jowar roti is furiously getting beaten to shape - sorghum’s very own wake-up call, one may say.
Sorghum’s story acts as a gentle reminder that the answers we seek for climate-resilience can be found in our backyards. But more importantly, it tells us that our farm-to-table narratives should move away from the rose-tinted visions of brightly coloured foods to include harsh realities of seeds that stubbornly forge their way out of almost nothing.
Sharmila Vaidyanathan is a freelance writer based in Bangalore, India. She explores food entrepreneurship, sustainability, and environmental conservation through her writing. Her work has appeared in Nature inFocus, Scroll, Goya, Hakai Magazine, Whetstone, Inkline and others.
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