As interest towards exploring "wild" plants like baobab grows let's not forget Ensete

Do not be fooled, this is not a banana plant. This is Ensete (Ensete ventricosum) widely known as wild banana, false banana, pseudo banana or Abyssinian banana. The second largest herb after banana (Musa spp.), yes you heard right, it is a herb. Unlike the banana the corm is the part of interest and the plant produces an average underground corm of 70kgs. The corms and the pseudo-stem have a high content of starch, thus the crop feeds about 20 million globally.

Ensete has been underexploited as a food crop as well as for environmental mitigation purposes. This plant is highly tolerant to drought and in the wake of climate change it is better poised as an all-year round source of food, fodder, fibre and medicine. This serves as an accessible source of carbohydrate for the populaces in the semi-arid to arid environments. Every plant part has significant economic importance testament to its versatility.

Sadly Ensete is under threat from Banana Xanthomonas Wilt (BXW) caused by Xanthomonas vasicola pv. musacearum first reported in Ethiopia in 1968 and has since spread to other parts of East Africa. However, very few Ensete genotypes have exhibited tolerance to this disease. Hence, there is a need to incorporate modern methods of crop improvement to circumvent the problem of low genetic variability in traits like disease resistance to BXW. As we give attention to other orphan crops like boabab (Adansonia digitata) may we not turn a blind eye to Ensete.