A drought-tolerant crop used in western Kansas could help fight food insecurity in other...

PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."A $2.5 million grant will fund the international partnership at a time when farmers in both Kansas and Madagascar are working to cope with water scarcity. Portions of Kansas are facing record drought and groundwater depletion while climate change is shortening the critical rainy seasons in Madagascar.

The new grant from the United States Agency for International Development will help Kansas State University share research on different varieties of sorghum that can better tolerate a changing climate.

Sorghum is a grain that is native to Africa, but farmers in places like Kansas have adopted it because of its resistance to drought.

Boyd Funk has farmed mostly sorghum north of Garden City for 45 years.

“Sorghum came from Africa, and has been so helpful as this area becomes more dryland,” Funk said.

Madagascar farmers historically grew sorghum, but that’s been declining since the 1990s in favor of more marketable crops such as corn. But just like in Kansas, corn has become less reliable in recent years. This has led to food insecurity, especially in southern Madagascar.

Timothy Dalton, director of the Sorghum and Millet Innovation Lab at K-State, said this is the latest in a history of international partnerships focused on sharing crop research.

“That's how the Madagascar embassy invited us. They knew of what we had been doing in other countries, looking at opportunities to improve productivity,” Dalton said."...