Ensete ventricosum: A Multipurpose Crop against Hunger in Ethiopia

Abstract

Ensete ventricosum is a traditional multipurpose crop mainly used as a staple/co-staple food for over 20 million people in Ethiopia. Despite this, scientific information about the crop is scarce. Three types of food, viz., Kocho (fermented product from scraped pseudostem and grated corm), Bulla (dehydrated juice), and Amicho (boiled corm) can be prepared from enset. These products are particularly rich in carbohydrates, minerals, fibres, and phenolics, but poor in proteins. Such meals are usually served with meat and cheese to supplement proteins. As a food crop, it has useful attributes such as foods can be stored for long time, grows in wide range of environments, produces high yield per unit area, and tolerates drought. It has an irreplaceable role as a feed for animals. Enset starch is found to have higher or comparable quality to potato and maize starch and widely used as a tablet binder and disintegrant and also in pharmaceutical gelling, drug loading, and release processes. Moreover, enset shows high genetic diversity within a population which in turn renders resilience and food security against the ever-changing environmental factors and land use dynamics. Therefore, more research attention and funding should be given to magnify and make wider use of the crop.

Accumulation of mutations in genes associated with sexual reproduction contributed to the domestication of a vegetatively propagated staple crop, enset

“…Due to its importance for food security in Ethiopia (Yemataw et al , 2014; Guzzon & Müller, 2016; Yemata, 2020), enset has been called “the tree against hunger” (Brandt et al, 1997a). Enset is known for its high yield, drought tolerance, high shade potential, broad agro-ecological distribution and long storage capacity (Brandt et al, 1997b; Quinlan et al, 2014).…”

Influence of fermentation time on proximate composition and microbial loads of Enset, (Ensete ventricosum), sampled from two different agroecological districts

“…More than 20 million Ethiopian populations depend on Enset for food. Enset is a traditional staple food crop in many parts of the densely populated south and south‐western highlands of Ethiopia(Yemata, 2020 ). Enset‐based mixed agricultural system is the main agricultural production in Southern Ethiopia(Pijls et al., 1995 ).…”

“…The major foods obtained from Enset are kocho (a bulk of fermented starch obtained from the mixture of decorticated leaf sheaths and grated corm) and bulla (a white powder obtained by squeezing liquid containing starch from the mixture of decorticated leaf sheaths and grated corm). Although many different dishes can be prepared from fermented kocho , pancake‐like bread is the most common(Borrell et al., 2020 ; Yemata, 2020 ). Enset, a starchy staple crop, is high in carbohydrates, but low in vitamins and protein content, low levels of essential amino acids, such as methionine and isoleucine.…”

The landscape of microsatellites in the enset (Ensete ventricosum) genome and web-based marker resource development

“…are cultivated for their fruits, enset starch is extracted from the pseudostem, leaf sheaths and underground corm. Enset is harvested year-round, and is reportedly drought tolerant 4 so is known as a food-security crop 5 . With good management and relatively low inputs, production per unit area is higher than most cereals 6 , so it can feed a large population 7 .…”

“…There is minimal breeding of enset as a crop, although genetic diversity analysis shows that cultivated accessions are genetically different to most wild accessions 5 , 18 – 20 ; there is the opportunity for future application of marker-assisted breeding 10 and marker based parental choice in crossing programmes in the crop. Genetic diversity and population structure studies are required for enset in Ethiopia for germplasm management, identifying landraces or cultivars, collection-management, and determining phylogenetic relationships.…”