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Significance and prospects of an orphan crop tef

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Abstract

Main conclusion

Tef is a resilient crop from the Horn of Africa with significant importance in food and nutrition security, and currently gaining global popularity as health and performance food.

Abstract

Tef [Eragrostis tef (Zucc.) Trotter] is the most important cereal of Ethiopia in terms of production, consumption and cash crop value. In Ethiopia, tef is annually grown on about 3 million ha with total grain production of over 5 million tons. As such, it accounts for about 30% of the total cultivated area and one-fifth of the gross grain production of all cereals cultivated in the country. In spite of its supreme economic and agricultural significance in Ethiopia, its productivity is relatively low with national average yield of about 1.7 t/ha. This has primarily been due to the very little scientific improvement done on the crop. Tef has still been an “orphan crop” since it is globally a very much under-researched crop owing to its localized importance. Scientific research on tef in Ethiopia began in the late 1950s. The main objective of this paper is to provide an overview of the significance and major production constraints of tef, and the major achievements made to date in various tef research aspects including breeding, agronomy, crop protection, and agricultural economics and extension. Based on these reviews, the paper eventually concludes with remarks on the way forward by emphasizing on the identification of the major gaps and the improvement efforts required for realizing the ever-needed breakthrough in the productivity and production of the crop. The major focal areas of future efforts include increasing productivity of both grain and biomass, systematic conservation and mining of the genetic resources, tackling the lodging malady, mechanization of the crop’s husbandry, understanding the overall physiology of the crop especially with respect to stress tolerance, unraveling the nutritional qualities, and development of recipes and value-added products.

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Fig. 1

Source: Computed from statistical reports of the Central Statistical Agency (CSA) of Ethiopia for the years 2000/01–2017/18

Fig. 2
Fig. 3

Source: Modified from Ferede (2013). Note: The adoption rates for the different varieties would not add up to 100% since the sampled farmers commonly grow more than one tef variety in the same season

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Acknowledgements

We thank Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture for financing currently ongoing important tef research projects in Ethiopia as well as Switzerland. We are also grateful to the McKnight Foundation’s Collaborative Crop Research Program for supporting fruitful collaborative research projects for over a decade and a half from 1995 until 2014. In addition, the support of the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) through a project on seed systems is very much acknowledged. Furthermore, the substantial contributions of the Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation/DANIDA sub-grant Tef Improvement Project (TIP) are highly appreciated and greatly acknowledged.

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  1. Debre Zeit Agricultural Research Center, P.O. Box 32, Debre Zeit, Ethiopia

    Solomon Chanyalew, Setotaw Ferede, Tebkew Damte, Tsion Fikre, Yazachew Genet, Worku Kebede, Kidist Tolossa & Kebebew Assefa

  2. Institute of Plant Sciences, University of Bern, Altenbergrain 21, 3013, Bern, Switzerland

    Zerihun Tadele

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Chanyalew, S., Ferede, S., Damte, T. et al. Significance and prospects of an orphan crop tef. Planta 250, 753–767 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00425-019-03209-z

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