Regional Analysis of Household Consumption of Sorghum in Major Sorghum-Producing and Consuming States in India-Working Paper Series no. 28.GBasavarajauthorP PRaoauthorIn the past, studies that have analyzed household consumption data of the National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) show a long term declining trend in per capita consumption of nutritious cereals such as sorghum and pearl millet both at National and State levels. However, a true picture can be drawn by looking at the household consumption data at a disaggregated regional level. Regional disaggregation of sorghum consumption shows that sorghum is still important in the consumption basket particularly in rural regions of central, eastern and western Maharashtra, and northern Karnataka. The NSSO data used for this analysis does not separate consumption by kharif (rainy season) and rabi (postrainy season) sorghum. The bulk of rabi sorghum is used for food consumption due to its superior grain quality, while only 40-50% of kharif sorghum is used for direct food use. The finding thus suggests that an increase in rabi sorghum production through productivity increase would help to bring down the prices of rabi sorghum and make its consumption affordable for low income consumers.Sorghum2011International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid TropicsMonograph