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Food health
Food health
Ethiopian barley has been these grains as mere “scarcity world’s most alarming
isolated so long that it has foods.” This is wrong: wild case of desertification.
been given its own botanical grains were eagerly eaten even
name, Hordeum irregulare, when pearl millet, for one, was These so-called “lost” plants of
and has developed its own abundant. Africa have much to offer, and
genetic “personality.” This Many modern writers also not just to Africa. Indeed, they
ancient barley is grown mainly imply that the wild cereals represent an exceptional cluster
in Ethiopia, where it ranks were gathered only on a small of cereal biodiversity with
fourth among crops, both in and localized scale. This, particular promise for solving
production and area. too, is false. The harvest in some of the greatest food-
Throughout most of the upper the Sahara, for example, was production problems that will
highlands, it accounts for over large-scale, sophisticated, arise in the twenty-first century.
60 percent of the people’s commercial, and much of it This potential for utility in
total plant food. Ethiopia is was export-oriented. The wild the future is because Africa’s
perhaps unmatched concerning grains were a delicacy that native grains tend to tolerate
barley diversity. Indeed, some even the wealthy considered extremes. They can thrive
scientists think it is a source a luxury. Examples of such where introduced grains
of new germplasm that could untamed cereals are drinn, produce inconsistently. Some
boost barley growing in Africa golden millet, kram-kram, (tef, for instance) are adapted
and around the world. panic grasses, wild rices, jungle to cold; others (pearl millet, for
rice, wild tefs, and crowfoot example) to heat; at least one
Ethiopian Oats grasses. sorghum to waterlogging; and
Ethiopia is home to native many to drought.
oats, Avena abyssinica. This Resurrecting the grain- Moreover, most can grow
species was domesticated in gathering industry of the better than other cereals on
the distant past and is a largely past might be a way to help relatively infertile soils.
nonshattering plant that retains combat desertification,
its grain so people can harvest erosion, and other forms of For thousands of years, they
it. It has long been used in land degradation across the have yielded grain even where
Ethiopia and is well adapted to worst afflicted areas of the land preparation was minimal
the high elevations there. It is, Sahel and its neighbouring and management poor. They
however, unknown elsewhere. regions. A vast and vigorous combine well with other crops
grain-gathering enterprise in mixed stands. Some types
Wild Grains might perhaps provide enough mature rapidly. They tend to
As noted, people in Africa economic incentive to ensure be nutritious. And at least one
have been eating wild grains that the grass cover is kept in is reputed to be better tasting
for perhaps 100,000 years. place and that overgrazing is than most of the world’s well-
In modern times, however, controlled. That would bring known grains.
various writers have discounted environmental stability to the
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