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Finger Millet (Eleusine coracana L.) is an annual grass (family Poaceae), also known as African millet or ragi.

It is widely grown in the arid areas of Africa and Asia. It is very adaptable to higher elevations and is grown in the Himalayas up to 2300 metres altitude.

Once harvested, the seeds keep extremely well and are seldom attacked by insects or moulds. The long storage capacity makes finger millet an important crop in risk avoidance strategies for poorer farming communities. Finger millet is especially valuable as it contains the amino acid methionine, which is lacking in the diets of hundreds of millions of the poor who live on starchy staples such as cassava, plantain, polished riceRice Rice fields on Java Scientific classification Kingdom: Plantae Division: Magnoliophyta Class: Liliopsida Order: Poales Family: Poaceae Genus: Oryza Species Oryza barthii ''Oryza glaberrima ''Oryza latifolia ''Oryza longistaminata ''Oryza punctata ''O or maizeMaize Scientific classification Kingdom: Plantae Division: Magnoliophyta Class: Liliopsida Order: Poales Family: Poaceae Genus Zea Species Zea diploperennis ''Zea luxurians ''Zea mays ssp. huehuetenangensis ''Zea mays ssp. mays ''Zea mays ssp. mexicana '' meal. Finger millet can be ground and cooked into cakes, puddingPudding is either of two general types of food, the second deriving from the first. The older puddings were foods that were presented in a solid mass formed by the amalgamation of various ingredients with a binder that may or may not have been a gelling as or porridgePorridge (also known in American English as hot cereal , is a simple dish made by boiling oats (normally crushed oats, occasionally oatmeal) or another meal in water and/or milk. Oat and semolina porridge are by far the most popular varieties; some other. The grain is made into a fermented drink (or beer1990s England when people received less than a pint (568 ml) of beer for the price of a pint. A beer is any variety of alcoholic beverages produced by the fermentation of starchy material derived from grains or other plant sources. The production of beer) in many parts of Africa.

Finger millet strawStraw is the dry stalk of a cereal plant, after the nutrient grain or seed has been removed. Straw makes up about half of the yield of a cereal crop such as wheat, oats, rye or barley. In times gone by, it was regarded as a useful by-product of the harves is used as animal fodder.

Finger millet is often intercropped with legumeThe term legume has two closely related meanings in botany, a situation encountered with many botanical common names of useful plants whereby an applied name can refer to either the plant itself, or to the edible fruit (or useful part). Thus, "legume" cans such as peanuts, cowpeas (Vigna sinensis), pigeon peas (Cajanus cajan) or niger pea s (Guizotia abyssinnica).

Although statistics on individual millet species are confused, and are sometimes combined with sorghum, it is estimated that finger millet is grown on approximately 38,000 km².

Improvements to finger millet are carried out by ICRISAT [1].