Fonio, one of the neglected and underutilized food species in West Africa, is a cereal of great importance to people due to its medicinal and taste qualities (Cruz et al., 2011). It plays a crucial role in the fight against food insecurity for many people, especially during lean season when early varieties enable to control famine (Dramé & Cruz, 2002; Sekloka et al., 2016). In Benin, unlike other cereals such as maize, sorghum, pearl millet and rice grown worldwide, fonio appears to be essentially local crop even endemic to the NorthWest of Benin, in particular Atacora (Dansi et al., 2010; Sekloka et al., 2016). Fonio presents socio-cultural importance, particularly for the Otammari people, in the municipality of Boukombé, the main cropping area, which alone provides 74% of national production (Dramé & Cruz, 2002; Paraïso et al., 2016). Despite its various uses, fonio has remained long neglected in national research programmes. Very little work is available on varietal breeding of this crop (Abdul & Jideani, 2019; Animasaun et al., 2018). In most parts of West Africa where this cereal is grown, there is no formal system for variety selection, production and