It is the most important of a diverse group of wild and domesticated Digitaria species known as fonio that are harvested in the savannas of West Africa.

It has potential to improve nutrition, boost food security,[6] foster rural development and support sustainable use of the land.

Despite its valuable characteristics and widespread cultivation, fonio has generally received limited research and development attention, which is also why the species is sometimes referred to as an underutilized crop.

[8] Fonio has continued to be important locally because it is both nutritious and one of the world's fastest growing cereals, reaching maturity in as little as six to eight weeks.

[9] In contrast, large levels of genetic diversity were detected among the domesticated Digitaria exilis landraces of the Upper Niger River Basin of West Africa.

White fonio has its main growing region in the highland plateaus of Nigeria, where it is popularly called acha.

[14] Fonio is cultivated in West Africa under tropical climate, with a pronounced dry season, temperatures between 25-30 °C and annual rainfalls of 600 to 1200 mm.

This root system explains the good performance of the plant during the dry season and its adaptation to poor and low fertility soils.

The seeds remain on the surface, so successive harrowing by hand or with the daba is needed to bury them slightly in the soil.

As soon as the grains reach maturity, usually in July or August, men cut the fonio with sickles while women and children gather it into sheaves.

[24] These protein levels are seen with Digitaria exilis being rich in essential amino acids such as methionine compared to other cereals such as wheat, rice and maize.

[25] These qualities show that Digitaria exilis could be a good food source, and that if the right characters are chosen, it could turn into a useful crop.

The crop has very small seeds surrounded by hard kernels, so its grains are ground into a fine powder before being used in cooking.

Digitaria exilis is the oldest native cereal crop in West Africa, first harvested around 5 millennia BC.

[27] Farmers emphasize the crop's culinary value, its short growth cycle, high productivity and medium size.

[29] However, due to a lack of harvesting and processing technology, it is difficult to maintain the crop's genetic diversity or establish large-scale production.

Digitaria exilis has many potential future uses in cooking or as technological feedstock so it is necessary to select for good kernel properties to develop it into a new crop for the world.

One method that distorts the nutritional composition of D. exilis is the extensive processing required to bring it to an edible state.

[9] Coeliac disease is an intolerance to wheat gluten, a prolamine, which can cause chronic small intestinal problems.

[citation needed] Fonio is closer to sorghum and rice than to wheat, and therefore it does not contain the sequence of amino acids that cause this intolerance.

[32] When nitrogen was added to the soil in limited quantities with an excess of potassium and phosphorus, productivity of D. exilis increased by 22%.

[32] On the contrary, when nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium were added to the soil in equal and moderate quantities, the greatest amount of yield and nutrition was seen.

The Digitaria exilis landraces that exhibit the greatest amount of nutrition and display the agriculturally important qualities can be further cultivated under improvement.

[33] As a result, Digitaria exilis can serve as a perennial crop to provide the human species with food security in the future.

[34] WWF and the multinational Unilever (Knorr) teamed up to launch a campaign to raise awareness of the 50 Future Foods which people should eat more of in order to help reduce the environmental impact of food productions and to improve human health – Digitaria exilis has been identified as one of those ingredients.

Digitaria exilis is an important source of nutrition because it is rich in methionine, which is an amino acid that is vital to human health.

Since Digitaria exilis was such an important part of people's nutrition, researchers wanted to find out what made it taste so good.

It was found that Digitaria exilis contains several amino acids that readily react with monosaccharides to form alkylpyrazines.

While succinylation does decrease the pH of starch, it can increase some of its properties such as bulk density and water absorption capacity.

The caryopsis, a type of fruit that contains a pericarp that is fused with a thin seed coat, of the Digitaria exilis contains several layers that serve the purpose of protecting the endosperm and embryonic tissues.