Real hope for Ethiopia's false banana

Going bananas over enset - 14th Feb 2022

An Ethiopian staple has emerged as a potential game changer as the quest for food security in the context of global climate change intensifies. While Ethiopia's enset trees resemble their cousin the banana, their fruit is indigestible. Yet, its starchy stems and underground rhizomes undergo a fermentation process which transforms them into an edible foodstuff.

In spite of enset-based porridge and bread being consumed by somewhere in the region of 20 million people, this wondercrop's rarely cultivated beyond Ethiopia's borders. However, as Dr Wendawek Abebe of Hawassa University in Awasa, Ethiopia, explains, "This is a crop that can play a really important role in addressing food security and sustainable development."

Scientific research has employed agricultural surveying and modelling to produce estimates that the superfood could potentially sustain in excess of 100 million people. This would offer a considerable boost to food security in Ethiopia and nearby African nations, for instance Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda.

Wild cousins of the plant have been located as far afield as South Africa, inferring the crop remains hardy in many settings. "It's got some really unusual traits that make it absolutely unique as a crop," according to one UK-based study researcher Dr James Borrell, from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

Cultivating enset as a buffer crop for lean times could enhance food security, as Dr Borrell went on to describe: "You plant it at any time, you harvest it at any time and it's perennial. That's why they call it 'the tree against hunger'."

The consequences of climate change have put yields and distribution of global food staples, rice, wheat and maize under serious threat, such as from large-scale drought, and therefore the onus is firmly on scientists to identify alternative food sources. Dr Borrell stressed the significance of this quest: "We need to diversify the plants we use globally as a species because all our eggs are in a very small basket at the moment."