“Food stars of Africa” (1). According to a recent study by the journal “Environmental Research Letters”, the Entest could, thanks to its many qualities, feed nearly 110 million people by 2070.
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By far, the tree looks like a banana tree among so many others. However, to look more closely, no yellow cluster hides under its large leaves. Like his cousin, the lounging belongs to the Musaceae family but, unlike the banana, he has no fruit to offer. On the other hand, its abundant pulp and its root often earn him the qualifier of “plant against hunger”, in particular in an East Africa violently confronted with global warming and droughts.
In southern Ethiopia, the ÉNEGE already acts as a basic food for 20 million inhabitants of the humid and sunny highlands that line the Rift Valley. Here, it is omnipresent, overlooking the roads, overflowing from the gardens and filling the plates. “She has been pushing for over 10,000 years,” says Addisu Fekedu, biotechnology professor at the University of Arba Minch.
“In our village, it is the number one culture, exclaims Mahatame Mangesha, which, despite its 70th anniversary, is striving to extract the pulp of the trunk in the locality of Dorze, a destination well known to tourists who came Observe the traditional way of life of the great Ethiopian South. Without the Entest, it is not certain that we can survive, because it is as well our food as that of our animals. “
This frail lady who kills herself on the task is no exception: in Ethiopia, the culture of the ÉNEST is, according to tradition, the almost exclusive domain of women. In his garden, Mahatame Mangesha skillfully zigzags between the hundred plants that grow trunk against trunk. Like her, all the inhabitants of Dorze, maintain dozens, even hundreds of these stringy plants several meters high in their backyard, until saturation. More than a fifth of the Ethiopian population would cultivate it.
“extraordinary potential”
If it takes three days to fully harvest the “fruits” of a single error, it is because it gives between 70 and 100 kg of yield. Mahatame Mangesha begins by dissecting the trunk in a dozen stems and wipes them to extract the pulp, which will be buried for fermentation and then cooked, most of the time in the form of Kocho, a traditional bread pancake. The bulb that hides underground also becomes edible once cooked. Finally, the leaves constitute the main diet of the goats while the fibers are recycled in bags or sometimes in makeshift roofs.
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