Self Help has gone a significant distance towards assisting tens of thousands of Ethiopian farmers to achieving food security since it began promoting the introduction of the resourceful enset plant in their project areas in the country’s southern region.
Although the dull grey coloured bread or porridge which is produced from the fermented plant can be stodgy and unpalatable to western tastes, enset has been having a far-reaching impact on the lives of rural Ethiopians for generations.
Also known as "false banana" due to its striking resemblance to the banana plant, enset (Ensete Scitamineae) is a traditional staple crop in many parts of the densely populated south and south-western Ethiopia.
The root of the plant provides food in the form of starch, the stem is used to produce a coarse fibre, and the leaves are fed to cattle, whose manure is in turn used to fertilize the plant. Although enset is a protein-poor crop, its deep roots give it a greater resilience to drought than other cereal crops, and consequently a greater degree of food security to those who grow it.
Development workers have found that there are other significant benefits too, not least of which is the contribution of the enset plant to sustainable farming. Soil erosion as a result of enset cultivation is minimal, and in enset plantation areas it has been found that native soil has been altered for the better due to the long-term application of manure, natural mulching of leaf and stem residues, the rainfall captured from the plant leaves, and the resulting soil moisture conservation and reduced run-off compared to bare-earth farming.
Enset plants, which are traditionally grown in small plantations adjacent to homesteads can grow to a height of six metres, and thus provide valuable windbreaks and shade from direct sunlight. Because of it’s large leafy fronds, it is also a good plant to inter-crop with coffee, potato and other food crops which benefit from shady growing conditions.
There are obstacles facing those engaged in promoting the propagation of enset however, and the most fundamental of these is the fact that it takes three to five years for the plant to achieve maturity. While a five year old plant can yield 40 kg of food, farmers who harvest after a single year can expect a yield of just one kg from the pseudostem – the bowl of the tree which is processed for food.
It is estimated that there are currently upwards of 10 million people in southern Ethiopia consuming enset in their diet. The major food products obtained from the Enset plant are kocho, bulla and amicho, all of which are simple to produce once the plant is harvested, and can be stored for long periods without spoiling.
Kocho is a bulky chewy fermented starch bread which is made from a mixture of the decorticated leafsheaths and grated root. Combined with Ethiopia’s spicy kitfo minced meat, it is now a required dish in virtually all restaurants in the country – Addis Ababa (Ethiopia's capital city) included.
The best quality enset food is bulla, obtained mainly from fully matured plants. Bulla can be prepared as a pancake, porridge and dumpling. Amicho is the boiled enset root. The root is boiled and consumed in a manner similar to that of other root and tuber crops. |
