A couple of images of possible interest. The first is a square (pie) chart showing the relative harvested area for the world's crops. It was done by Benjamin Nowak, and can be seen at https://github.com/BjnNowak/TidyTuesday/blob/main/world_crops.png
It is organized by botanical family, which itself is interesting, at least to some of us. When it comes to millets, however, we run into a familiar problem: they're collapsed under the title of one box - "millet," with the exception of sorghum, which of course is by itself the 5th most produced grain by volume. To be fair, dividing the "millet" box would result in some vey small boxes. Also - and this certainly is the overriding factor - the FAOStat data cited for this diagram does not For perspective, note the tiny box in the lower right for buckwheat (family, Polygonaceae). The two other pseudo cereals, quinoa and amaranth, would be in the box with sugar beets (family, Amaranthaceae). The second item, which is not nearly so ambitious, is the attached pie chart of relative production of millets, including sorghum. This is the second version of something I did earlier, but with only the two approximate figures that are documented - those for annual production of sorghum and pearl millet in millions of metric tons (depending on the grain, 1 mT ranges between about 36-46 bushels). There is a rough formula for the rest, for which I used variables and simple equations, so as not to give the impression that my guesses would have actual meaning. Sorghum grain production (around 60-70 million mT/yr) is said to be about twice that of all other millets, and pearl millet (around 14-15 million mT/yr) is said to be equal to that of the remaining millets combined. I recently saw 1909s figures estimating finger millet production to be about 3 mill. mT/yr. Also, the production ranking of the top 5 millets is: sorghum, pearl millet, foxtail millet, proso millet, and finger millet. From that we can construct a pie chart showing approximate relative production of millets. But yes, I'd like to get some good figures and redo the chart. Comments welcome of course, and please pass on (links to) any similar efforts you may have access to. Don Osborn, PhD (East Lansing, MI, US) North American Millets Alliance
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