Food Barley Land races Characterization in the Northwestern Highlands of Ethiopia

Abstract

Barley is an important crop for the North Gondar highlands of Amhara Region, Ethiopia. To assess the characterization of barley landraces, 180 farmers from six villages in three districts of north Gondar zone were selected and surveyed. With regard to distribution status, most of the recorded landraces of barley were endangered. The main end uses of barley in the study area were kolo, beso, tela, injera, korefe, kita and kinche. According to farmers, the main criteria for selecting a variety were varietal characteristics mainly in the pre-harvest operation. The main characteristics for doing so are length of the spike, size of the seed, amount of seed per spike, ability to withstand disease, stand of the plant, tillering ability, number of rows, and germination ability. The majority of farmers renew the seed mostly between 1 and 3 years. The main reasons for renewing are production decline, to prevent landraces from elimination and to increase productivity. The majority of the farmers stated that they do not store seeds for long period of time associated with the fact that they hardly produce any surplus that can be stored for longer years. In barley production, women have roles of joint decisions on number and types of varieties to grow, plot allocation, and storage. However, postharvest processing is mainly decided by women. Farmers have proverbs associated with how much women are important in saving and maintaining barley landraces and make ready when the need arises. Hence, barley genetic resources should be conserved before they are lost and farmers' variety selection criteria should be incorporated in the modern breeding of barley. The active involvement of women in the maintenance and improvement of landraces should not be undermined in the modern crop improvement programs.

The Ethiopian snack food (‘Kolo’): Existing knowledge and research directions on processing practices, quality and consumption

“…Basically, the types of barely used for Kolo preparation depend on availability, cost, and yields. Due to these, different varieties of barely varieties are used, such as Teklie gebs , Derg gebs , Woremene , Semeno , Nech gebs , Awura gebs , Shegie gebs , Shewa gebs , Tikur gebs , and Dinble nech gebs [ 13 ]. From different types of barley, ‘ Senefe gebese ’ and ‘Temeje gebse'’are common and known by Kolo producers.…”

“…Therefore, to prevent and reduce the health risk to consumers due to acrylamide, it is better to consider the factors that facilitate this toxic compound, like roasting temperature, route of acrylamide formation, and Maillard reactions [ 12 , 44 , 13 ]. Many investigations have been carried out utilizing a variety of techniques, such as physical, chemical, and biological procedures, to restrict the production of acrylamide in cooked foods.…”