What The Heck is Sorghum Anyway???

"I wouldn't recognize sorghum if it was stuck to my shoe!"

- Abu Haroun, March 2012

The U.S. helps support the daily feeding of tens of millions of people worldwide...many of whom would die without the help.  Some of the food we provide costs less than $1,200 per metric ton!

This week, I learned a lot about the Food For Peace (FFP) program which is implemented by U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).  Each year, the U.S. spends around $1.8 billion on food aid to help the hungry and malnourished around the world.  One common myth is that the U.S. Government purchases excess agricultural commodities from American farmers and then gives them away overseas.  In fact, the U.S. Department of Agriculture actually buys the commodities off the same market as companies do and then provides it to USAID to send overseas.  In that respect, it is not a subsidy program for American farmers.  On the other hand, the international food aid program is funded by the Farm Bill which otherwise has nothing to do with international relations, diplomacy, or the State Department.  Its largest proponents are American farmers and millers, NGOs that distribute the food, and the U.S. shipping industry.  The Farm Bill requires that 75% of the commodities be milled and bagged in the U.S. and that the majority of the commodities be transported using U.S. shipping companies.

Trucks lined up to drop off food commodities at the WFP Warehouse in Kabul, Afghanistan

The U.S. Government does not directly distribute the goods overseas, instead it works through international NGOs and the United Nations World Food Program (WFP).  The U.S. also does not ship sandwiches, or candy bars, or other forms of finished foods.  Instead we ship various types of flour and grains, rice, beans, powdered milk, peas, lentils, and vegetable oil.  These commodities are either shipped in huge bags which are packed in the U.S. or are literally dumped into the hold of massive ocean liners and bagged once they arrive at their destination.  Once the items arrive they are transported to huge warehouses where they are then stored until they are ready to be distributed.

Just one of several massive warehouses full of food in Kabul maintained by WFP

In addition to the bulk items described above, the U.S. also provides specialized food for mothers, infants, and young children at high risk for malnutrition.  These include some specialized corn-soy and wheat-soy blends as well as fortified cooking oil with added nutrients specifically for pregnant and nursing women, infants, and young children.

Vitamin A fortified cooking oil

One great program the U.S. sponsors around the world is called Food for Education.  In these programs, families who allow their young children to attend school full-time for a month receive a tin of fortified cooking oil like the one in the picture above.  In many countries, this has significantly increased child nutrition and also ensured that girls are allowed to stay in school even during periods of economic distress.  One of the saddest things I learned is that 25,000 children die daily of severe malnutrition.  The great news is that the U.S. also provides Ready to Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) which are small toothpaste sized packages containing miracle food for severely malnourished children.  Each packet contains 1,000 calories worth of tasty paste containing the most important vitamins and minerals malnourished kids need.  As long as the child is strong enough to eat, two packets a day can reverse severe malnutrition in a month or so.

RUTF for malnourished children donated to WFP by the people of Japan

So one question that comes to my mind is:  what the heck do people do with a 100 pound bag of flour provided by the people of the US?  People dealing with natural disasters, refugees, and displaced persons generally don't have a robust kitchen or access to quality food (or they wouldn't be eating bags of flour).  Generally, if they have access to clean water and a heat source, they can convert the flour into porridge or breads which can be eaten to provide valuable nutrition.  After seeing thousands of bags of various types of flour stacked up in different places around the world, I was curious how to cook with it.

Lots of flour!

I chose to cook with sorghum flour since according to the U.S. Grains Council it is the third largest cereal crop in the US and our country is the #1 exporter of the commodity worldwide (link below if you must know more about sorghum).  If you are not a recipient of U.S. food aid or on some sort of special diet, you probably don't know that there is an aisle at Whole Foods dedicated to special flours like sorghum.  So I went to the store and bought some!

Sorghum flour from Whole Foods ($3.50)

I enlisted the help of my daughter and we decided to cook using the only ingredients that people in an emergency situation were likely to have:  flour, water, and salt.  We used the cookbook for sorghum flour provided by the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) which was broken out by country and explains how to prepare meals using sorghum flour.  The link is below if you want to experiment yourself.  Since we were not in the mood for porridge and we already knew how to make pancakes we went with that option first.

Adding water to the flour

Flour, water, and salt mixed by hand into a ball

Dough flattened on a flour covered surface

Cooked on a hot surface with a bit of oil

The first piece of sorghum flour bread/pancake was fairly dry and flavorless (possibly bordering on bitter).  We ate it with a bit of water and it was fine.  While it was certainly not anything I would order at a restaurant it would certainly do the job if I was starving.  So we decided to deviate slightly (cheat) from the original constraints and decided to crush a banana into the next batch and even dropped about 1/2 a teaspoon of sugar in.  While the U.S. does not supply sugar (or tea or chocolate) as international food aid, other countries do, so we figured a bit of sugar would be OK.

Adding a banana and a bit of sugar

We cooked the second batch of sorghum flour pancakes and were pleasantly surprised!  They actually tasted pretty good and they were very filling. 

My sous-chef happily eating the second batch

The more I learn about the food assistance the more impressed I am.  It is a logistically nightmarish scenario to get food to the folks who need it; however, the effort results in saving millions of lives per year including preventing children from literally dying from hunger.

Here are some links with additional information if you are interested:

U.N. World Food Programme Web Site
Information on Child Malnutrition

More information on lifesaving RUTF for severely malnourished children

All about sorghum

U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization Sorghum Cookbook