restrictions were placed on cereal
imports (maize and rice imports
were banned completely in 1985;
wheat imports were banned two
years later). Ghana, Senegal, and
Zaire also tightened restrictions on
imported cereals, although less
drastically, and relaxed price
controls on locally produced staples.
While the effects of these actions on
maize trade were minimal, the
growth of wheat and rice imports
decreased, and in some cases maize
production increased substantially.

Utilization
Nearly all maize grown in sub-
Saharan Africa is used for human
food, with the exception of a small
amount fed to livestock (less than
10%). Some maize is consumed
green as a snack food, either
roasted or boiled. More often, dried
maize grain is processed into
porridge, soup, fermented paste, or
a kind of couscous. In all cases,
quality is important, especially
texture, color, taste, ease of proc-
essing, storage quality, and cooking
quality.

Grain texture can be hard (flint) or
soft (dent). The denting feature of
maize grain comes from the propor-
tion of hard (or vitreous) en-
dosperm in the kernel to soft (or
floury) endosperm (Figure 13). In
flint materials like popcorn, virtu-
ally all of the endosperm is vitre-
ous, and the kernel retains its
rounded shape during drying. In
dent materials, a core of floury
endosperm is embedded in a shell of
flinty endosperm; the floury core
shrinks during drying, causing the
surface of the kernel to collapse
inward and giving the grain its
characteristic dented appearance. If
maize is used as whole grain, flint
and dent types differ little in
processing efficiency. However, if
maize is consumed without the


germ, as is common in many parts
of Africa, the keeping quality of
maize flour improves but process-
ing losses may be greater, espe-
cially for dent maize.

In many parts of eastern and
southern Africa where maize is the
primary staple, rural households
show a strong preference for flint
maize, which is made into meal.
Refined meal is usually produced at
home, although partially processed
meal may be taken to a village mill
for final grinding. In some areas,
maize intended for household
consumption is taken directly to the
village mill to be ground into whole,
unrefined meal. However, prefer-
ences may be changing. Consumer
demand for more refined types of
meal in both rural and urban areas
has been steadily increasing,
probably because more refined meal
stores better and cooks faster (FAO
1984).


In western and central Africa,
preferences for different grain tex-
tures vary depending on how maize
is consumed. In areas where grain
is wet milled (i.e., milled after being
soaked in water for several days),
grain texture is less important, and
consumers generally prefer flint
maize because it stores better. But
in areas where grain is milled dry,
consumers prefer dent and floury
maize types because they are easier
to process by traditional milling
methods.

Feed use of maize is still modest in
Africa compared to the rest of the
developing world (Figure 14). At
present, only small amounts of
maize grain are fed to animals,
mostly poultry. However, two
developments could change this
situation. First, when economic
growth resumes in sub-Saharan
Africa, rising consumer incomes are


Figure 13. Structure of dent and flint maize types.