Staples like wheat, maize and rice
feed the world, providing nearly half the calories we eat.
But in many regions these crops
and our access to them are under threat.
There's definitely an urgency to find alternatives
to the current food systems,
especially in the current context that we're in now
where you've had supply chains disrupted by Covid,
where you have the Ukraine - Russia war
which has reduced the amount of wheat available,
where you have climate change
making it more difficult to access water sources.
Current global conditions have created
the worst food security crisis in West Africa for a decade.
And nearly 40 million people in the Sahel region,
a semi-arid belt across North Africa are now facing hunger.
But fonio, a small grain native to that region
has the potential to help.
In many ways fonio is the crop of the future
but it's unable to live to that potential
because of how much it's been neglected in the past.
It tastes like couscous, but what it has over couscous
is that it's gluten free, it's easy to digest.
It's protein rich, anti-glycemic, which means
that it helps fight diabetes and it's also very filling.
But most importantly,
fonio is drought resistant and can grow in poor soil.
It only grows in the Sahel region
and a belt of Savannah below it.
It's cultivated mainly for sustenance in lean times
by local communities like the nomadic Fulani.
Fulani is really one of the predominant ethnic groups
in the Sahel.
Chef Fatmata Binta is from Sierra Leone and based in Ghana
and so she's of that ethnicity.
She was a refugee and ate fonio to survive with her family.
I want to decolonize African cuisine
because the questions I was asking myself
when I was in culinary school was,
why am I cooking the food I didn't grow up eating?
It didn't make sense to me.
Also why food should travel miles to come
to my kitchen before I serve it to someone?
After going to culinary school in Kenya
and working at top hotels in Accra,
Chef Fatmata Binta toured the world with a pop-up restaurant
that gave others a chance to taste her culture
with a focus on fonio.
It's an ancient grain it has been around
for a very long time, we believe over 7,000 years.
It's very easy to grow.
So if you think about a sustainable grain,
that's the first grain that will come to mind for me.
You don't need to plow the land too much to grow it.
And it's a tiny grain like the size of sand.
The size of the fonio grains is a problem.
Being so small and wrapped in a husk
that has to be removed before it's eaten
makes it extremely hard and tedious to process.
And in most places the processing hasn't changed
for millennia.
It starts with separating the grain from the stem.
The women will stomp on it
while they're singing and dancing.
That's their way of also, you know
having that community sisterhood, bonding.
They're trying to get the sand out of the fonio
after stomping
and then they will pound it, they'll toast it.
It takes like a week or two to process.
Technological innovation is a must if fonio
is ever to be a serious contender as a crop of the future.
There are only 700,000 tons of it produced annually,
compared to over 700 million tons of wheat.
About 75% of all fonio comes from Guinea.
At a point, the former president of Guinea,
President Alpha Condé, who was actually deposed in a coup,
became a big advocate for fonio.
He used to travel to neighboring countries
on diplomatic missions and carried a bag of fonio
to give to his counterparts because he recognized
that there was an export market
and that he could earn foreign currency by exporting fonio.
And so there was a push to mechanize fonio.
About a dozen countries can grow fonio,
but in Guinea they actually have quite a few mills
which is not the case for the other countries.
Those machines are very helpful cause it helps us
to increase our productivity.
Before the machines for the production of one ton
we could take three weeks.
Now that we have the machines
we can just make three days or four days.
But even mills in Guinea's capital,
Conakry haven't mechanized the entire process.
And so de-husking often still happens the traditional way.
Fonio's kind of got a reputation in western media
as this super food that had this quinoa potential.
But it hasn't really taken off.
There is not enough fonio being grown
at least at a commercial level,
and there's not enough processing facilities.
Fonio is actually considered a neglected
and underutilized crop species,
that's actually a scientific category
which is also called an orphan crop
which means it's been an under-researched crop.
More research could help improve yields
and bring the production process into the 21st century.
But to gain more traction, ambassadors like Chef Binta
are crucial to spreading the word about fonio's potential.
There's something so powerful about food
and I believe it can break down barriers.
It's a bridge.
Like I get to collaborate a lot with Michelin star chefs.
I will send them fonio and then challenge them
to create something because I believe
that's how you spark conversation
and that's how you educate people
and and expose it to the world.
Local exposure is also crucial.
Even though fonio grows in northern Ghana,
in the region's biggest city there, Tamale
the grain is nowhere to be found.
It's been so much a grain that's been kept
for farmer households but even though I describe it
as a farmer crop, it's actually very expensive to buy fonio.
It's about eight times more expensive than rice
at the same quantity of rice.
And that's why if you wanna buy it as an outsider
it's actually very expensive.
It's a ceremonial meal.
The idea is that if there's a commercialization of fonio
what would also happen is that
the cost of fonio would go down.
But there needs to be a value chain for fonio
for there to be more players, more manufacturers,
more people who grow it.
If you don't change mindsets quickly and bring investment
people are actually going to forget the skill
because it's only traditional.
And they needs to be a point where people
both researchers, industry, governments, decide
that they need to invest in this as a real solution.
Chef Binta is one of many who
are taking fonio seriously, so seriously in fact,
she's willing to bet her own livelihood on it.
She's now moving to Tamale, to work directly with farmers
and try to build the value chain from the ground up.
I'll spend days with the locals
the keepers of the authentic recipes.
And these women take time to teach me.
They are passing down knowledge,
they are passing down sustainable traditions
and it didn't feel right to walk away, go back
to my kitchen and not recognize what they are going through.
So I wanted to collaborate with them
in a more meaningful way.
So the main goal is to partner
with women who are growing fonio already
in the north of Ghana.
And we'll have a center where we'll process, we'll package
and then we'll distribute locally and internationally.
And I believe we have to start locally
because we have to place value first locally
and then we can scale it.