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Translator

Why pop just corn? A Bioversity project report

 
Demonstrating the popper machine in the market. Photo: Y. Morimoto/Bioversity International

Demonstrating a popper machine in the market. Photo: Y. Morimoto/Bioversity

Recent years have seen a dramatic increase in ‘snack culture’ in Kenya. Office workers and especially children grab a quick bite at lunch time and even between meals, and the snacks are commonly sugar-based confectionaries or, increasingly, French fries.

These energy-rich foods are associated with increasing incidence of obesity and other non-communicable diseases such as diabetes and heart disease. Recent years have also seen Bioversity and its partners take an increasing interest in traditional and neglected crops.

Could these two trends feed one another? This Bioversity project, supported by the Government of Japan, looked at novel ways to develop markets for traditional grains and seeds in Africa by creating 'popcorn' snacks made from alternatives to corn such as sorghum, finger millet and green gram.

“I was looking for technologies that we could promote that would encourage people to grow and use traditional crops" said Yasuyuki Morimoto, a Bioversity scientist.

"I remembered the excitement of pop-cereals from when I was a child in Japan. Just the sound of the grains popping would set me off looking for the pop-cereal seller”. 

This set Yasu to thinking whether this could be a way to provide healthier snacks as well as create new markets for traditional grains and seeds. These once-popular crops have lost ground in recent years to ‘exotic’ grains, such as maize and wheat.

Although these exotics can give high yields under ideal conditions they lack the pest resistance and climatic adaptation of their traditional rivals, and so are often poorly adapted to the conditions found on smallholder farms in the East African highlands. What is more, traditional crops are commonly more nutritious, containing higher levels of vitamins and minerals than the upstarts.

A farmer harvesting sorghum. Photo: Y. Morimoto/Bioversity International

A farmer harvesting sorghum. Photo: Y. Morimoto/Bioversity International

Yasu tracked down a blueprint for a popping machine from a colleague in Japan and found a Japanese engineer, Hideki Ishigaki, working at Kaplong Youth Polytechnic near Kericho, Nairobi, who was able to build a prototype of the machine using locally available materials.

He then linked up with the Matayos Self-Help Youth Group in Matayos village in Busia district, near Kenya’s western border with Uganda, to test the popper on local cereals and grains. Busia is a centre of diversity for sorghum and finger millet and large numbers of landraces are still grown there.

“We wanted to see if the popper would work with local crops and if there would be a market for the popcereals,” Yasu said.

There were a few initial problems with the popper, which called for some reengineering. The machine is basically a high-pressure pressure cooker. Internal pressure reaches about 10 times atmospheric pressure, compared with only twice atmospheric pressure for an ordinary pressure cooker. The prototype had problems with losing pressure during popping. If the pressure drops too much the whole batch of seed can be lost, which small producers could not afford. Current success rates average between 50 and 60% of seeds popping, which cuts into profitability, so work on modified seals is ongoing.

Initial tests of the popped cereals have been very promising. The Youth Group made ‘popcorn’ from many different traditional crops, and people in the village have shown an interest in these novel snacks.

The Youth Group has been running a series of experiments with different grains, testing their popping behaviour and which ones customers like best.  They have also tested different popping recipes, trying different pressures, cooking times, flavourings and packing. So far, they have developed recipes for 13 different crops, including sorghum, millets and cowpea. The next batch of experiments will look at different landraces of the crops, to identify the better poppers among them. This is likely to be fruitful because other crops, such as chickpeas and beans, have varieties specifically selected for good popping.

But still there is the issue of the market for the popped cereal. “Rural people don’t have much money to spare for ‘luxuries’ like popcorn,” Yasu noted. So the focus is turning to the environs of Nairobi, where disposable incomes are higher and access to the Nairobi urban market is greater.

“We have a programme of events lined up building on the leafy vegetables work,” said Yasu (see project report 'Back by Popular Demand'). “We plan to piggyback promotion of these novel popped cereals on those events.”

It’s early days yet, but it looks like pop-cereal will help bring some of the traditional crops of the Kenyan highlands back to their former prominence. Farmers get fresh options and new markets, and consumers get a nutritious and tasty snack that is also good for the environment.

Further information

Contact:  y.morimoto(at)cgiar.org

Partners in this project included the Matayos Self Help Group in Busia, Mr Ishigaki from the Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteer Programme and the Kenya Resource Centre for Indigenous Knowledge. We also wish to thank the Government of Japan for their support.