- Enset, a drought-tolerant crop native to Ethiopia and known as the “tree against hunger,” feeds more than 25 million people and is seen as a key to building climate-resilient food systems.
- Despite its importance, enset has long been neglected by both local agricultural policies and international partners, limiting its potential to improve food security on a broader scale.
- Efforts are underway to revive the cultivation and use of enset through innovation and national development programs — turning it into marketable products like flour used for porridge or cookies, which can be consumed in urban areas and across the country.
- However, challenges such as crop disease, limited investment and lack of international support remain key obstacles to its expansion as a sustainable food solution.
ARBA MINCH, Ethiopia — On a late May morning, as the chill of dawn gives way to sunlight warming the hills of Hareba village in southern Ethiopia, 56-year-old Almaz Achamo tends to her staple crop: a towering, banana-like plant that has supported her community for generations. Known locally as enset (Ensete ventricosum), or the “false banana,” this traditional climate-resilient plant has helped families survive droughts and food shortages.
“Enset is the most important plant for my family, we get all our food from it,” Almaz says as she gently removes damaged leaves to keep the crop healthy. They rely on enset because it can be harvested year-round and sustains them in tough times. “When other crops fail, enset never lets us go hungry,” Almaz tells Mongabay.
It’s this resilience that has led researchers to call enset the “tree against hunger.” Even so, the crop remains neglected, largely overlooked by both local agricultural policies and international stakeholders.
But as climate change and other pressures strain traditional food systems in rural areas, Ethiopia is working to revive enset. Once sidelined, enset is now part of national programs and university-led innovations focused on boosting food security, improving livelihoods, and shaping the future of food in the country.
Researchers and innovators are developing new cultivation and processing technologies to tackle key challenges in enset production, aiming to transform it into a viable commercial crop and expand its use beyond traditional growing regions. They want to mainstream it, they say, and turn it into marketable products like flour used for porridge or cookies, which can be consumed in urban areas and across the country.
For the past 11 years, Addisu Fekadu, an associate professor specializing in food technology at Arba Minch University, has been leading research to address key challenges in the cultivation and use of neglected indigenous crops like enset. His team and others say that their work on product innovation and market development is aimed at expanding enset beyond its traditional zones and integrating it into national dietary habits.
“Enset has been neglected and is not considered a strategic crop in Ethiopia, this is truly shocking!” Addisu tells Mongabay. “Our mission is to turn such neglected local crops into global food solutions.”
Enset is a drought-tolerant perennial crop that feeds about one-fifth of the country, or more than 25 million Ethiopians. With the potential to feed more than 100 million people in a warming world, scientists say the plant could be a new superfood and a lifesaver in the face of climate change.
But limited research, innovation and rural development have restricted enset cultivation to a handful of regions, say sources, and curbed its potential to combat food insecurity in vulnerable populations. Barriers also include labor-intensive and time-consuming processing, contamination risks, limited food applications, vulnerability to pests and diseases, and weak market demand. As a result, some farmers have abandoned enset in favor of cereal crops.
A new processing method
Although it’s called the false banana, enset isn’t grown for its fruit. Instead, its thick stem and corm (the underground part of the stem) are processed into an edible starch that forms the base of traditional dishes like kocho (fermented flatbread), bulla (starchy porridge) and amicho (boiled corm), cherished staples across Ethiopia.
But this beloved taste comes with a cost: traditional processing methods are laborious, with fermentation — the process that turns the stem into an edible, storable starch — taking weeks or even months.
Addisu and his team have designed a combined enset processing machine that scrapes and grates enset to reduce physical labor and improve efficiency compared to traditional methods. They’re also introducing airtight jars and developing microbial starter cultures (yeast and bacteria) to standardize and speed up enset fermentation.
“These machines significantly reduce the burden, especially for women, who do most of the enset preparation. It reduced fermentation time from two months to just one week,” Addisu says.
Cooperatives, often led by women and unemployed youth, now operate these machines in various enset-growing communities across southern Ethiopia. One such processing hub is near Almaz’s village and has made a noticeable difference, she tells Mongabay.
At the Dorze cooperative center, the scent of fresh kocho mixed with the earthy smell of fermenting enset is apparent from the door. Inside, wearing headscarves and aprons, women pay a small fee to use the machine. They then load the peeled stems into the grater. Another woman kneads the resulting mush into a dough with practiced hands. Their chatter blends with the hum of machinery.
“Using the machine has made a huge difference for me,” says Canhe Almaze, one of the women. “It’s much faster and less tiring than doing it all by hand … The kocho [also] turns out much cleaner and better.”
The new enset-processing machines have already been distributed to 34 farmer cooperative centers in the South Ethiopia region, with grants under the USAID–Feed the Future Ethiopia program. On average, each center serves an entire kebele (Ethiopia’s smallest administrative unit) reaching approximately 600 households.
Still, access remains uneven. For farmers who live farther from processing centers, transporting enset stalks long distances remains a challenge.
The researchers say they’re working on making the machines more affordable and adaptable to be used for manual operation and so that each household can afford to own one.
“We are also working on portable, easy-to-use diesel machines that farmers can own or share with neighbors,” Addisu says.
They also propose a public–private partnership in which private companies would manufacture the machines and support local enterprises, in a bid to make the technology more affordable and accessible while also creating jobs in enset-growing regions.
Into urban markets
Enset’s consumptions remains rooted in traditional foods like kocho, bulla and amicho. Experts say this narrow culinary range has been one of the key factors slowing wider adoption.
“One of the main reasons enset hasn’t reached its full potential is because it’s only used in a few traditional foods,” Addisu says. “We’re focused on creating new enset-based foods to broaden its use and market appeal.”
He says the machines and the new fermentation process have allowed them to develop enset flour, which is also gluten-free. This can be used to produce a range of food products, from porridge and bread, to cakes, cookies and more.
“It’s a crucial step that transforms enset from a traditional staple into a versatile, market-ready ingredient that meets modern dietary needs and consumer demand,” Addisu says. “We can now produce clean, high-quality enset that yields easily processable flour, making it suitable for a wide range of food products.”
This success has also led to the creation of a startup, Lucy Enset, that transforms enset into what economists call “value-added food products” — raw ingredients made into finished products such as bread, cakes, cookies and waffles. The company sources processed enset from local cooperatives, mills it into flour, and distributes the final products through supermarkets in several towns.
“We have received positive feedbacks and growing interest from urban consumers,” says Addisu, a founder of Lucy Enset.
This has motivated them to expand their reach to larger markets, including the capital city, Addis Ababa.
“Our first shop in Addis Ababa is almost ready to open,” Addisu says.
Government push for enset
Gutu Mijena, team leader of the roots and tubers department at the Ministry of Agriculture, says the ministry is placing greater emphasis on enset as part of a broader strategy to promote underutilized crops with high potential for food security.
“We’re working to unlock that potential,” Gutu says.
According to him, this focus includes advancing enset cultivation through research, extension programs, development programs and a national road map.
For years, enset lacked the formal extension package — a standardized set of farming instructions and training — that came with other major crops, Gutu says. Now, he says, the ministry is now introducing a dedicated enset production package, which is expected to help address most barriers to enset production.
“This package will provide farmers with better planting, disease control, and post-harvest practices to increase yields,” he tells Mongabay.
The Ethiopian government also aims to expand enset into national markets, introduce it into new regions, and make it a competitive, commercially viable commodity through the newly launched National Enset Development Flagship Program, which will run through 2030. The program seeks to engage universities, private sector innovators, state bodies and development partners in the effort, government officials say.
“Once launched, every stakeholder will take its own role and begin implementing,” Gutu says.
The program also envisions expanding enset production to a wider swath of the country over the next 10 years.
So far, however, there’s no sign the government is promoting large-scale enset monoculture plantations. The crop is currently grown mainly as part of mixed farming systems, often alongside coffee, root crops and fruit trees, which helps maintain agroecological diversity. In fact, one of enset’s strengths is how well it fits into smallholder systems that support biodiversity and help protect the land, researchers say.
Challenges persist
Despite these ongoing efforts, enset production continues to faces persistent challenges. One of the most urgent and serious threats is from diseases like bacterial wilt, which can devastate entire crops and lead to 100% yield losses.
“Despite various interventions, this disease remains one of the main challenges hindering the advancement of enset cultivation and its expansion beyond traditional growing areas in Ethiopia,” Gutu says.
A community-based program to prevent insect attacks and bacterial wilt is being introduced in some regions, focusing on early detection and traditional farming practices that don’t use chemical fertilizers. The ministry is also distributing disease-resistant enset varieties identified through both scientific research and farmer experience.
Another challenge that restricts enset’s expansion, Addisu says, is that there’s little interest from private investors, and financial institutions are largely unwilling to support enset-related projects.
“Ethiopian financial institutions are not interested in backing enset, they see lending to it as a waste of money,” he says. “We need clear policy direction to shift that mindset.”
Tsedeke Abate, a senior Ethiopian agricultural scientist and founder of Homegrown Vision, a think tank dedicated to advancing African agriculture, also says strong and efficient commitment by the government is important.
“Enset development requires sustained and strategic commitment, not short-term or fragmented interventions, if we’re serious about achieving lasting impact,” Abate says. “Strategic leadership means not just making plans but ensuring practical implementation on the ground.”
One major barrier, he says, is the lack of reliable, centralized data on enset cultivation, productivity and usage. Without accurate information, he says, decision-makers struggle to understand the crop’s true status and potential, resulting in poor policy choices, inefficient resource use, and slow progress in scaling up production.
To address this, Abate recommends establishing a dedicated agency to collect, manage and update comprehensive data on enset nationwide. While universities and researchers have made meaningful contributions, their efforts remain fragmented and lack coordination, limiting overall impact.
“Small, isolated research or pilot projects here and there are not enough,” Abate says. “Without coordination, it’s difficult to tackle the core barriers to enset production and commercialization.”
Banner image: After separating the edible pulp, the leftover enset fibers are collected and used to make durable household items like ropes, mats and baskets. Image by Solomon Yimer for Mongabay.
Photos: Ethiopian farmers blend tradition, innovation to sustain centuries-old agriculture
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Citations:
Dilebo, T. (2025). Enset a drought-tolerant and food-secure crop: The role of local farmers in managing and conserving its genetic resources. Discover Sustainability, 6(1). doi:10.1007/s43621-025-00911-9
Mitiku, A., Wolde, M., Mengesh, W., & Reshid, A. (2024). Assessment on major constrains of Enset (Ensete ventricosum) landrace production and management methods in Gurage Zone, Central Ethiopia. Plant, 12(2), 25-36. doi:10.11648/j.plant.20241202.12
Temam, B., Getahun, M., Kebede, M., & Tsegaye, Y. (2024). Community based integrated enset bacterial wilt (Xanthomonas Campestris pv. musacearum) management through collective actions in central Ethiopia region. Journal of Life Science and Biomedicine, 13(4), 66-77. doi:10.54203/jlsb.2023.10
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