Tradition to Transition: Ethnobotanical insights into changing enset farming systems in Ethiopia

Crop diversity enhances resilience to climate change, pests, and diseases, as well as being of cultural value. However, despite this diversity persisting historically in many rural food systems, under the stewardship of local communities, over the last century, we have witnessed crop diversity decline dramatically. 

In South-West Ethiopia, Kew, Addis Ababa University, and partners are tracking loss of diversity in enset – the traditional crop in this region – through ethnobotanical approaches. But what do we actually mean when we talk about ethnobotany?

Ethnobotanical research plays a vital role in preserving crop diversity by studying, promoting, and empowering rural food systems where diversity persists, alongside associated knowledge and practices. By supporting crop diversity – the cornerstone of resilient local and global farming systems – we can better ensure a reliable and equitable future food supply.

Enset in Ethiopia

Currently, much of the ethnobotanical work on agricultural systems carried out by Kew and its partners focuses on the fascinating, diverse, and climate-resilient banana-relative enset (Ensete ventricosum) in the only place it is believed to have ever been domesticated – the highlands in the south-west of Ethiopia. 

Enset is an important crop plant to study as it supports food security for one of the densest populations in Sub-Saharan Africa, acting as a vital source of nutrition for over 20 million people across Ethiopia.

Kew and its partners in Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia, have carried out group interviews with over 400 farmers across 20 different cultural regions of South-West Ethiopia. The findings from these interviews reveal how recent agricultural and cultural changes have altered patterns of enset variety diversity, distribution and use. 

One of the cultural regions explored as part of this work is Basketo. Basketo is a relatively small, yet highly ecologically diverse district organised around the traditional homelands of the Basketo ethnic group in the south-west of Ethiopia. In Basketo, somewhere between 80 and 120 distinct varieties of enset are grown in intricately designed homegarden systems known as aal-oos-gad.

Shifting Agricultural Priorities

Whilst aal-oos-gad systems in Basketo have historically centred on enset, this study reveals significant recent changes in cultivation. 

60% of farmers reported that the area of farmland they dedicated to enset cultivation had shrunk within the last few decades, with one farmer, a 70-year-old man from northern Basketo, saying that the land on his farm used to grow enset had halved within the last 20 years alone. This suggests agricultural priorities in Basketo may be shifting away from the traditional enset crop towards other crops, with introduced species like maize and potato being grown more and more frequently.

In these interviews, farmers also consistently describe a sharp decline in household consumption of enset over the last 30 years. Enset is mostly grown to produce kocho, a starchy and fermented pulp made from the grated and pounded pseudostem (trunk) and underground corm of the plant, which is a staple of Ethiopian cuisine. Farmers in Basketo reported that as recently as 20 years ago, they consumed kocho three times a day, every day. Nowadays, demand for kocho has sharply declined, with some households eating it as rarely as once a week.

Ethnobotanical data gathered by the field team in Ethiopia suggests that these recent changes seen in Basketo reflect broader trends. Under the joint pressures of increasing urbanisation and globalisation, traditional patterns of enset cultivation and consumption – intrinsic to Ethiopian culture – may be being increasingly displaced by modernised agricultural practices. 

This shift favours the production of high-yielding commercial crops that provide better economic returns in urban markets. The cost of this transition, however, may be high. The loss of important enset diversity means this important ‘tree of life’ and staple crop could become increasingly vulnerable in the future.

Looking into drivers of change in Ethiopian farming practices can help provide insights into how traditional food crops can be conserved as part of a changing agricultural landscape, helping to support the stability, sovereignty and resilience of traditional food systems into the future.