Sorghum Food Aid

National Grain Sorghum Producers (NGSP), in cooperation with the U.S. Grains Council (USGC), is committed to developing successful relationships with individuals undertaking food aid efforts. This commitment is yet another facet of grain sorghum's place as "The Global Grain of the Future."

By providing information on appropriate types of sorghum for food aid as well as specific quality factors consistent with end user needs, NGSP and USGC can ensure that aid recipients receive culturally appropriate sorghum that meets nutritional needs as well as other emergency feeding requirements.

Based upon NGSPs role as the only organization in the U.S. dedicated exclusively to advancing sorghum consumption, NGSP makes the following recommendations to aid agencies, non-governmental organizations, foreign governments and other importers/exporters when requesting grain sorghum for food aid:

1. Aid requests should be for "white sorghum" in every situation where sorghum is to be used for human consumption. More than 90% of sorghum-consuming countries in the world use "white sorghum" for food. "Yellow sorghum" in the U.S. represents every color except white and is more suitable for animal feeding. As a result of USDA grading standards that class non-white sorghum as "yellow sorghum", requests that use the term "yellow sorghum" will result in those requests being filled with non-white sorghum types that are more suitable for animal consumption.
2. When vacuvators are used to remove grain sorghum from the ships hold, grain may shatter, resulting in degradation in the quality of the grain. However, the amount of degradation is dependent on the quality of the grain.
3. Sorghum should preferably be bagged. Additionally, the shipment should not be "lightered" (i.e. handled more than once during offloading). Multiple handling of the sorghum during offloading will cause significant degradation in the quality of the grain.

NGSP and USGC will continue to work to bring the world the proper varieties of grain sorghum for human consumption in every area where there is a need. Further questions or concerns should be directed to Tim Snyder, NGSP's Marketing Director.