Maize
Maize known as corn, is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. The leafy stalk of the plant produces pollen inflorescences and separate ovuliferous inflorescences called ears that yield kernels or seeds, which are fruits. Maize has become a staple food in many parts of the world, with the total production of maize surpassing that of wheat or rice. However, little of this maize is consumed directly by humans: most is used for corn ethanol, animal feed and other maize products, such as corn starch and corn syrup; the six major types of maize are dent corn, flint corn, pod corn, flour corn, sweet corn. Maize is the most grown grain crop throughout the Americas, with 361 million metric tons grown in the United States in 2014. 40% of the crop—130 million tons—is used for corn ethanol. Genetically modified maize made up 85% of the maize planted in the United States in 2009. Sugar-rich varieties called sweet corn are grown for human consumption as kernels, while field corn varieties are used for animal feed, various corn-based human food uses, as chemical feedstocks.
Maize is used in making ethanol and other biofuels. Most historians believe. Recent research in the early 21st century has modified this view somewhat. An influential 2002 study by Matsuoka et al. has demonstrated that, rather than the multiple independent domestications model, all maize arose from a single domestication in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago. The study demonstrated that the oldest surviving maize types are those of the Mexican highlands. Maize spread from this region over the Americas along two major paths; this is consistent with a model based on the archaeological record suggesting that maize diversified in the highlands of Mexico before spreading to the lowlands. Archaeologist Dolores Piperno has said: A large corpus of data indicates that it was dispersed into lower Central America by 7600 BP and had moved into the inter-Andean valleys of Colombia between 7000 and 6000 BP. Since even earlier dates have been published. According to a genetic study by Embrapa, corn cultivation was introduced in South America from Mexico, in two great waves: the first, more than 6000 years ago, spread through the Andes.
Evidence of cultivation in Peru has been found dating to about 6700 years ago. The second wave, about 2000 years ago, through the lowlands of South America. Before domestication, maize plants grew only small, 25 millimetres long corn cobs, only one per plant. In Spielvogel's view, many centuries of artificial selection by the indigenous people of the Americas resulted in the development of maize plants capable of growing several cobs per plant, which were several centimetres/inches long each; the Olmec and Maya cultivated maize in numerous varieties throughout Mesoamerica. It was believed. Research of the 21st century has established earlier dates; the region developed a trade network based on surplus and varieties of maize crops. Mapuches of south-central Chile cultivated maize along with quinoa and potatoes in Pre-Hispanic times, however potato was the staple food of most Mapuches, "specially in the southern and coastal territories where maize did not reach maturity". Before the expansion of the Inca Empire maize was traded and transported as far south as 40°19' S in Melinquina, Lácar Department.
In that location maize remains were found inside pottery dated to 730 ±80 BP and 920 ±60 BP. This maize was brought across the Andes from Chile; the presence of maize in Guaitecas Archipelago, which constitute southernmost outspost of Pre-Hispanic agriculture, is reported by early Spanish explorers. However the Spanish may have misidentified the plant. After the arrival of Europeans in 1492, Spanish settlers consumed maize and explorers and traders carried it back to Europe and introduced it to other countries. Spanish settlers far preferred wheat bread to cassava, or potatoes. Maize flour could not be substituted for wheat for communion bread, since in Christian belief only wheat could undergo transubstantiation and be transformed into the body of Christ; some Spaniards worried that by eating indigenous foods, which they did not consider nutritious, they would weaken and risk turning into Indians. "In the view of Europeans, it was the food they ate more than the environment in which they lived, that gave Amerindians and Spaniards both their distinctive physical characteristics and their characteristic personalities."
Despite these worries, Spaniards did consume maize. Archeological evidence from Florida sites indicate. Maize spread to the rest of the world because of its ability to grow in diverse climates, it was cultivated in Spain just a few decades after Columbus's voyages and spread to Italy, West Africa and elsewhere. The word maize derives from the Spanish form of the indigenous Taíno word for mahiz, it is known by other names around the world. The word "corn" outside North America and New Zealand refers to any cereal crop, its meaning understood to vary geographically to refer to the local staple. In the United Stat
Northern Region, Nigeria
Northern Nigeria was an autonomous division within Nigeria, distinctly different from the southern part of the country, with independent customs, foreign relations and security structures. In 1962 it acquired the territory of the British Northern Cameroons, which voted to become a province within Northern Nigeria; the Nok culture, an ancient culture dominated most of what is now Northern Nigeria in pre historic times, its legacy in the form of terracotta statues and megaliths have been discovered in Sokoto, Birinin Kudu and Zaria. The Kwatarkwashi culture, a variant of the Nok culture centred around Zamfara in Sokoto Province is thought by some to be the same or an offshoot of the Nok; the Fourteen Kingdoms unified the diverse lore and heritage of Northern Nigeria into a cohesive ethno-historical system. Seven of these Kingdoms developed from the Kabara legacy of the Hausa people. In the 9th century as vibrant trading centers competing with Kanem-Bornu and Mali developed in the Central Sudan, a set Kingdoms merged dominating the great savannah plains of Hausaland, their primary exports were leather, cloth, kola nuts, animal hides, henna.
The Seven Hausa states included: Daura,? - 1806 Kano, 998 - 1807 Katsina, c. 1400 - 1805 Zazzau, c. 1200 - 1808 Gobir,? - 1808 Rano Biram, c. 1100 - 1805The growth and conquest of the Hausa Bakwai resulted in the founding of additional states with rulers tracing their lineage to a concubine of the Hausa founding father, Bayajidda. Thus they are called meaning Bastard Seven; the Banza Bakwai adopted many of the customs and institutions of the Hausa Bakwai but were considered unsanctioned or copy-cat kingdoms by non-Hausa people. These states include: Zamfara Kebbi Yauri Gwari Kwararafa Nupe Ilorin Between 500 CE and 700 CE Hausa people, who are thought to have moved from Nubia and mixing in with the local Northern and Middle Belt population, established a number of strong states in what is now Northern Nigeria and Eastern Niger. With the decline of the Nok and Sokoto, who had controlled Central and Northern Nigeria between 800 BCE and 200 CE, the Hausa were able to emerge as the new power in the region.
They are linked with the Kanuri people of Kanem-Bornu, the Birom, Gwari and Jukun. The Hausa aristocracy, under influence from the Mali Empire adopted Islam in the 11th century CE. By the 12th century CE the Hausa were becoming one of Africa's major powers; the architecture of the Hausa is one of the least known but most beautiful of the medieval age. Many of their early mosques and palaces are bright and colourful and include intricate engraving or elaborate symbols designed into the facade. By 1500 CE the Hausa utilized a modified Arabic script known as Ajami to record their own language. Usuman dan Fodio led a jihad against the Hausa States and united them into the Sokoto Caliphate; the Sokoto Caliphate was under the overall authority of the Commander of the Faithful. Under Dan Fodio, the Empire was bicephalous and divided into two territories each controlled by an appointed vizier; each of the territories was further divided into autonomous Emirates under hereditary local Emirs. The Bornu Empire was absorbed into the Sokoto Caliphate of Usman dan Fodio, but broke away after a few years later.
The British involvement in Northern Nigeria was predominantly trade-related, revolved around the expansion of the Royal Niger Company, whose interior territories spread north from about where the Niger River and Benue River joined at Lokoja. The Royal Niger Company's territory did not represent a direct threat to much the Sokoto Caliphate or the numerous states of Northern Nigeria; this changed, when Fredrick Lugard and Taubman Goldie laid down an ambitious plan to pacify the Niger interior and unite it with the rest of the British Empire. The protectorate of Northern Nigeria was proclaimed at Ida by Fredrick Lugard on January 1, 1897; the basis of the colony was the 1885 Treaty of Berlin which broadly granted Northern Nigeria to Britain, on the basis of their protectorates in Southern Nigeria. Hostilities with the powerful Sokoto Caliphate soon followed; the Emirates of Kotogora and Ilorin were the first to be conquered by the British. In February 1903, the great fort of Kano, seat of the Kano Emirate was captured and much of the rest of its Caliphate soon catapulted.
On March 13, 1903, the Grand Shura of Caliphate conceded to Lugards demands and proclaimed Queen Victoria and sovereign of the Caliphate and all its lands. The Governor, Frederick Lugard, with limited resources, ruled with the consent of local rulers through a policy of indirect rule which he developed into a sophisticated political theory; the geographical area included in the Northern protectorate included the Okun-Yoruba land of Kabba, Ijumu, Yagba, as well as, Ebira land, Igala land fashioned collectively under Kabba Province. The Ifelodun, Omuaran and Irepodun areas Yorubas were fashioned into Ilorin province. Lugard left the protectorate after some years, serving in Hong Kong, but was returned to work in Nigeria where he decided on the merger of the Northern Nigeria Protectorate with Southern Nigeria in 1914. Agitation for independence from the radically different Southern Protectorate however led to a formidable split on the 1940s; the Richards constitution proclaimed in 1945 gave overwhelming autonomy to the North including in the areas of foreign relations and customs policy.
Northern Nigeria gaine
Cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus Gossypium in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is pure cellulose. Under natural conditions, the cotton bolls will increase the dispersal of the seeds; the plant is a shrub native to tropical and subtropical regions around the world, including the Americas, Africa and India. The greatest diversity of wild cotton species is found followed by Australia and Africa. Cotton was independently domesticated in the New Worlds; the fiber is most spun into yarn or thread and used to make a soft, breathable textile. The use of cotton for fabric is known to date to prehistoric times. Although cultivated since antiquity, it was the invention of the cotton gin that lowered the cost of production that led to its widespread use, it is the most used natural fiber cloth in clothing today. Current estimates for world production are about 25 million tonnes or 110 million bales annually, accounting for 2.5% of the world's arable land.
China is the world's largest producer of cotton. The United States has been the largest exporter for many years. In the United States, cotton is measured in bales, which measure 0.48 cubic meters and weigh 226.8 kilograms. There are four commercially grown species of cotton, all domesticated in antiquity: Gossypium hirsutum – upland cotton, native to Central America, the Caribbean and southern Florida Gossypium barbadense – known as extra-long staple cotton, native to tropical South America Gossypium arboreum – tree cotton, native to India and Pakistan Gossypium herbaceum – Levant cotton, native to southern Africa and the Arabian Peninsula The two New World cotton species account for the vast majority of modern cotton production, but the two Old World species were used before the 1900s. While cotton fibers occur in colors of white, brown and green, fears of contaminating the genetics of white cotton have led many cotton-growing locations to ban the growing of colored cotton varieties; the word "cotton" has Arabic origins, derived from the Arabic word قطن.
This was the usual word for cotton in medieval Arabic. The word entered the Romance languages in the mid-12th century, English a century later. Cotton fabric was known to the ancient Romans as an import but cotton was rare in the Romance-speaking lands until imports from the Arabic-speaking lands in the medieval era at transformatively lower prices; the earliest evidence of cotton use in the Indian subcontinent has been found at the site of Mehrgarh and Rakhigarhi where cotton threads have been found preserved in copper beads. Cotton cultivation in the region is dated to the Indus Valley Civilization, which covered parts of modern eastern Pakistan and northwestern India between 3300 and 1300 BC; the Indus cotton industry was well-developed and some methods used in cotton spinning and fabrication continued to be used until the industrialization of India. Between 2000 and 1000 BC cotton became widespread across much of India. For example, it has been found at the site of Hallus in Karnataka dating from around 1000 BC.
Cotton bolls discovered in a cave near Tehuacán, have been dated to as early as 5500 BC, but this date has been challenged. More securely dated is the domestication of Gossypium hirsutum in Mexico between around 3400 and 2300 BC. In Peru, cultivation of the indigenous cotton species Gossypium barbadense has been dated, from a find in Ancon, to c. 4200 BC, was the backbone of the development of coastal cultures such as the Norte Chico and Nazca. Cotton was grown upriver, made into nets, traded with fishing villages along the coast for large supplies of fish; the Spanish who came to Mexico and Peru in the early 16th century found the people growing cotton and wearing clothing made of it. The Greeks and the Arabs were not familiar with cotton until the Wars of Alexander the Great, as his contemporary Megasthenes told Seleucus I Nicator of "there being trees on which wool grows" in "Indica"; this may be a reference to "tree cotton", Gossypium arboreum, a native of the Indian subcontinent. According to the Columbia Encyclopedia: Cotton has been spun and dyed since prehistoric times.
It clothed the people of ancient India and China. Hundreds of years before the Christian era, cotton textiles were woven in India with matchless skill, their use spread to the Mediterranean countries. In Iran, the history of cotton dates back to the Achaemenid era; the planting of cotton was common in Merv and Pars of Iran. In Persian poets' poems Ferdowsi's Shahname, there are references to cotton. Marco Polo refers to the major products including cotton. John Chardin, a French traveler of the 17th century who visited Safavid Persia, spoke approvingly of the vast cotton farms of Persia. During the Han dynasty, cotton was grown by Chinese peoples in the southern Chinese province of Yunnan. Egyptians spun cotton in the first seven centuries of the Christian era. Handheld roller cotton gins had been used in India since the 6th century, was introduced to other countries from there. Between the 12th and 14th centuries, dual-roller gins appeared in China; the Indian version of the dual-roller gin was preval
Senate of Nigeria
The Senate is the upper house of the Nigeria's bicameral legislature, the National Assembly of Nigeria. The National Assembly is the nation's highest legislature, whose power to make laws is summarized in chapter one, section four of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution, it consists of 109 senators: the 36 states are each divided in 3 senatorial districts each electing one senator. The President of the Senate is the presiding officer of the Senate, whose chief function is to guide and regulate the proceedings in the Senate; the Senate President is third in the Nigerian presidential line of succession. He is assisted by the Deputy President of the Senate; the current Senate President is Sen. Bukola Saraki and the current Deputy Senate President is Ike Ekweremadu both of the People's Democratic Party; the Senate President and his Deputy are assisted by principal officers including the Majority Leader, Deputy Majority Leader, Minority Leader, Deputy Minority Leader, Chief Whip, Deputy Chief Whip, Minority Whip, Deputy Minority Whip.
In addition, there are 63 Standing Committees in the Senate chaired by Committee Chairmen. The lower house is the House of Representatives. Bills may be introduced in any chamber of the National Assembly. However, the Nigerian constitution provides that money bills must originate in the House of Representatives, although the approval of both the Senate and the House of Representatives is required for any bill, including money bills, to become law; the constitution provides several unique functions for the Senate that form its ability to "check and balance" other elements of the Federal Government of Nigeria. These include the requirement that the Senate may advise and must consent to some of the President's government appointments; the "Majority party" is the party that either has a majority of seats or can form a coalition or caucus with a majority of seats. The second largest party is the Minority party. Senators are to serve a term of four years until a General election. Senators have unlimited tenure and can remain in the chamber for as long as they are re-elected in general elections.
A group of 15 senators of Nigeria’s ruling party defected to the main opposition group underscoring rising political tensions thereby making the All Progressive Congress lose her majority stake, although Senate President Bukola Saraki was not among but he decamped to the people’s democratic party on Tuesday 31st July 2018. In August 2018, Senator Akpabio resigned as the Senate Minority Leader while joining the long list of Legislative defectors by joining the ruling APC. Official website
Gum arabic
Gum arabic known as acacia gum, arabic gum, gum acacia, Senegal gum and Indian gum, by other names, is a natural gum consisting of the hardened sap of various species of the acacia tree. Gum arabic is collected from predominantly Acacia senegal and Vachellia seyal; the term "gum arabic" does not indicate a particular botanical source. In a few cases so‐called "gum arabic" may not have been collected from Acacia species, but may originate from Combretum, Albizia or some other genus; the gum is harvested commercially from wild trees in Sudan and throughout the Sahel, from Senegal to Somalia—though it is cultivated in Arabia and West Asia. Gum arabic is a complex mixture of glycoproteins and polysaccharides predominantly consisting of arabinose and galactose, it is soluble in water and used in the food industry as a stabilizer, with EU E number E414. Gum arabic is a key ingredient in traditional lithography and is used in printing, paint production, glue and various industrial applications, including viscosity control in inks and in textile industries, though less expensive materials compete with it for many of these roles.
While gum arabic is now produced throughout the African Sahel, it is still harvested and used in the Middle East. Gum arabic was defined by the 31st Codex Committee for Food Additives, held at The Hague from 19–23 March 1999, as the dried exudate from the trunks and branches of Acacia senegal or Vachellia seyal in the family Fabaceae. A 2017 safety re-evaluation by the Panel on Food Additives and Nutrient Sources of the European Food Safety Authority said that the term "gum arabic" does not indicate a particular botanical source. Gum arabic's mixture of polysaccharides and glycoproteins gives it the properties of a glue and binder, edible by humans. Other substances have replaced it where toxicity is not an issue, as the proportions of the various chemicals in gum arabic vary and make it unpredictable. Still, it remains an important ingredient in soft drink syrup and "hard" gummy candies such as gumdrops, M&M's chocolate candies. For artists, it is the traditional binder in watercolor paint, in photography for gum printing, it is used as a binder in pyrotechnic compositions.
Pharmaceutical drugs and cosmetics use the gum as a binder, emulsifying agent, a suspending or viscosity increasing agent. Wine makers have used gum arabic as a wine fining agent, it is an important ingredient in shoe polish, can be used in making homemade incense cones. It is used as a lickable adhesive, for example on postage stamps and cigarette papers. Lithographic printers employ it to keep the non-image areas of the plate receptive to water; this treatment helps to stop oxidation of aluminium printing plates in the interval between processing of the plate and its use on a printing press. Gum arabic is used in the food industry as a stabilizer and thickening agent in icing, soft candy, chewing gum and other confectionery and to bind the sweeteners and flavorings in soft drinks. A solution of sugar and gum arabic in water, gomme syrup, is sometimes used in cocktails to prevent the sugar from crystallizing and provide a smooth texture. Gum arabic is a soluble dietary fibre, a complex polysaccharide indigestible to both humans and animals.
It is considered safe for human consumption. There is indication of harmless flatulence in some people taking large doses of 30g or more per day, it is not degraded in the intestine, but fermented in the colon under the influence of microorganisms—it is a prebiotic. There is no scientific consensus about its caloric value; the US FDA set a value of 4 kcal/g for food labelling, but in Europe no value was assigned for soluble dietary fibre. A 1998 review concluded that "based on present scientific knowledge only an arbitrary value can be used for regulatory purposes". In 2008 the FDA sent a letter of no objection in response to an application to reduce the rated caloric value of gum arabic to 1.7 kcal/g. Gum arabic is used as a binder for watercolor painting because it dissolves in water. Pigment of any color is suspended within the acacia gum in varying amounts, resulting in watercolor paint. Water acts as a vehicle or a diluent to thin the watercolor paint and helps to transfer the paint to a surface such as paper.
When all moisture evaporates, the acacia gum does not bind the pigment to the paper surface, but is absorbed by deeper layers. If little water is used, after evaporation the acacia gum functions as a true binder in a paint film, increasing luminosity and helping prevent the colors from lightening. Gum arabic allows more subtle control over washes, because it facilitates the dispersion of the pigment particles. In addition, acacia gum slows evaporation of water, giving longer working time; the addition of a little gum arabic to watercolor pigment and water allows for easier lifting of pigment from paper and thus can be a useful tool when lifting out color when painting in watercolor. Gum arabic has a long history as additives to ceramic glazes, it acts as a binder, helping the glaze adhere to the clay before it is fired, thereby minimising damage by handling during the manufacture of the piece. As a secondary effect, it acts as a deflocculant, increasing the fluidity of the glaze mixture but making it more to sediment out into a hard cake if not used for a while.
The gum is made up into a solution in hot water (typica
Human Development Index
The Human Development Index is a statistic composite index of life expectancy and per capita income indicators, which are used to rank countries into four tiers of human development. A country scores a higher HDI when the lifespan is higher, the education level is higher, the GNI per capita is higher, it was developed by Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq, with help from Gustav Ranis of Yale University and Meghnad Desai of the London School of Economics, was further used to measure a country's development by the United Nations Development Program's Human Development Report Office. The 2010 Human Development Report introduced an Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index. While the simple HDI remains useful, it stated that "the IHDI is the actual level of human development", "the HDI can be viewed as an index of'potential' human development"; the index does not take into account several factors, such as the net wealth per capita or the relative quality of goods in a country. This situation tends to lower the ranking for some of the most advanced countries, such as the G7 members and others.
The index is based on the human development approach, developed by ul Haq framed in terms of whether people are able to "be" and "do" desirable things in life. Examples include—Being: well fed, healthy; the freedom of choice is central—someone choosing to be hungry is quite different from someone, hungry because they cannot afford to buy food, or because the country is in a famine. The origins of the HDI are found in the annual Human Development Reports produced by the Human Development Report Office of the United Nations Development Programme; these were devised and launched by Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq in 1990, had the explicit purpose "to shift the focus of development economics from national income accounting to people-centered policies". To produce the Human Development Reports, Mahbub ul Haq formed a group of development economists including Paul Streeten, Frances Stewart, Gustav Ranis, Keith Griffin, Sudhir Anand, Meghnad Desai. Nobel laureate Amartya Sen utilized Haq's work in his own work on human capabilities.
Haq believed that a simple composite measure of human development was needed to convince the public and politicians that they can and should evaluate development not only by economic advances but improvements in human well-being. Published on 4 November 2010, the 2010 Human Development Report calculated the HDI combining three dimensions: A long and healthy life: Life expectancy at birth Education index: Mean years of schooling and Expected years of schooling A decent standard of living: GNI per capita In its 2010 Human Development Report, the UNDP began using a new method of calculating the HDI; the following three indices are used: 1. Life Expectancy Index = LE − 20 85 − 20 LEI is 1 when Life expectancy at birth is 85 and 0 when Life expectancy at birth is 20.2. Education Index = MYSI + EYSI 2 2.1 Mean Years of Schooling Index = MYS 15 Fifteen is the projected maximum of this indicator for 2025. 2.2 Expected Years of Schooling Index = EYS 18 Eighteen is equivalent to achieving a master's degree in most countries.3.
Income Index = ln − ln ln − ln II is 1 when GNI per capita is $75,000 and 0 when GNI per capita is $100. The HDI is the geometric mean of the previous three normalized indices: HDI = LEI ⋅ EI ⋅ II 3. LE: Life expectancy at birth MYS: Mean years of schooling EYS: Expected years of schooling GNIpc: Gross national income at purchasing power parity per capita The HDI combined three dimensions last used in its 2009 Report: Life expectancy at birth, as an index of population health and longevity to HDI Knowledge and education, as measured by the adult literacy rate and the combined primary and tertiary gross enrollment ratio. Standard of living, as indicated by the natural logarithm of gross domestic product per capita at purchasing power parity; this methodology was used by the UNDP until their 2011 report. The formula defining the HDI is promulgated by the United Nations Development Programme. In general, to transform a raw variable, say x, into a unit-free index between 0 and 1 (which allo
Millet
Millets are a group of variable small-seeded grasses grown around the world as cereal crops or grains for fodder and human food. Millets are important crops in the semiarid tropics of Asia and Africa, with 97% of millet production in developing countries; the crop is favored due to its productivity and short growing season under dry, high-temperature conditions. Millets are indigenous to many parts of the world; the most grown millet is pearl millet, an important crop in India and parts of Africa. Finger millet, proso millet, foxtail millet are important crop species. Millets may have been consumed by humans for about 7,000 years and had "a pivotal role in the rise of multi-crop agriculture and settled farming societies". Millets are small-grained, warm-weather cereals belonging to the grass family, they are tolerant of drought and other extreme weather conditions and have a similar nutrient content to other major cereals. The different species of millets are not closely related. All are members of the family Poaceae but can belong to different tribes or subfamilies.
The most cultivated millets are in bold and marked with an *. Eragrostideae tribe in the subfamily Chloridoideae: *Eleusine coracana: Finger millet Eragrostis tef: Teff – not considered to be a millet. Paniceae tribe in the subfamily Panicoideae: Genus Panicum: *Panicum miliaceum: Proso millet *Panicum sumatrense: Little millet *Pennisetum glaucum: Pearl millet *Setaria italica: Foxtail millet, Italian millet, panic Genus Digitaria – of minor importance as crops. Digitaria exilis: known as white fonio, fonio millet, hungry rice or acha rice. Digitaria iburua: Black fonio Digitaria compacta: Raishan, cultivated in the Khasi Hills of northeast India Digitaria sanguinalis: Polish millet Genus Echinochloa: Collectively, the members of this genus are called barnyard grasses or barnyard millets. Other common names to identify these seeds include Jhangora, Samo seeds or Morio / Mario / Moraiaya seeds. Echinochloa esculenta: Japanese barnyard millet Echinochloa frumentacea: Indian barnyard millet known as Sawa millet, Kodisama in Andhra Pradesh and Kuthirai vaali in Tamil Nadu and Bhagar or Varai in Maharashtra), Echinochloa stagnina: Burgu millet Echinochloa crus-galli: Common barnyard grass.
Paspalum scrobiculatum: Kodo millet Brachiaria deflexa: Guinea millet Urochloa ramosa: Browntop millet Andropogoneae tribe in the subfamily Panicoideae: *Sorghum bicolor: Sorghum - considered a separate cereal, but sometimes known as Great millet Coix lacryma-jobi: Job's tears known as adlay millet. Chinese legends attribute the domestication of millet to the legendary Emperor of China. Millets have been mentioned in some of the oldest extant Yajurveda texts, identifying foxtail millet, Barnyard millet and black finger millet, indicating that millet consumption was common, dating to 4500 BCE, during the Indian Bronze Age. Common millet is believed to have been the first domesticated millet dating back about 10,300 years before the present. Specialized archaeologists called palaeoethnobotanists, relying on data such as the relative abundance of charred grains found in archaeological sites, hypothesize that the cultivation of millets was of greater prevalence in prehistory than rice in northern China and Korea.
Millets formed important parts of the prehistoric diet in Indian, Chinese Neolithic and Korean Mumun societies. Broomcorn and foxtail millet were important crops beginning in the Early Neolithic of China. For example, some of the earliest evidence of millet cultivation in China was found at Cishan. Cishan dates for common millet husk phytoliths and biomolecular components have been identified around 8300–6700 BCE in storage pits along with remains of pit-houses and stone tools related to millet cultivation. Evidence at Cishan for foxtail millet dates back to around 6500 BCE. A 4,000-year-old well-preserved bowl containing well-preserved noodles made from foxtail millet and broomcorn millet was found at the Lajia archaeological site in China. Millet was growing wild in Greece as early as 3000 BCE, bulk storage containers for millet have been found from the Late Bronze Age in Macedonia and northern Greece. Hesiod describes that "the beards grow round the millet, which men sow in summer." And millet is listed along with wheat in the 3rd century BCE by Theophrastus in his "Enquiry into Plants".
Palaeoethnobotanists have found evidence of the cultivation of millet in the Korean Peninsula dating to the Middle Jeulmun pottery period. Millet continued to be an important element in the intensive, multicropping agriculture of the Mumun pottery period in Korea. Millets and their wild ancestors, such as barnyard grass and panic grass, were cultivated in Japan during the Jōmon period some time after 4000 BCE. Asian varieties of millet made their way from China to the Black Sea region of Europe by 5000 BCE; the cultivation of common millet as the earliest dry crop in East Asia has been attributed to its resistance to drought, this has been suggested to have aided its spread. Pearl millet was domesticated in the Sahel region of West Africa, where its wild ancestors are found. Evidence for the cultivation of pearl millet in Mali dates back to 2500 BCE, pearl millet is found in the Indian subcontinent by 2300 BCE. Finger millet is o
Nigeria
Media related to Kano State at Wikimedia Commons
