Research indicated that Inset crop is found to be a principal diet in the central and southern parts of Ethiopia where more than 20 million people relay. It is also plays significant role in benefiting the people economically within the Inset producing areas. Inset is growing in the densely populated area in the small plots but feed huge population.
Guraghe zone, a zone found within the Central Ethiopia regional state is among the popular Inset producing areas of Ethiopia. Kocho, a food made from Inset rich in carbohydrate remains the known staple cultural food in the zone, similar to other Inset producing areas. It is also with high nutritive content and consumed with other diets. The crop supports the community in ensuring food and nutrition security and the overall economy of the people of Guraghe zone.
So far, this important crop is not well researched scientifically while the process of preparing food out of Inset remains traditional and tiresome. The features, the varieties and the process of making diet from Inset need to be examined. In this regard, higher educational institutions located in the Inset producing areas have the responsibility to study the varieties, exploring the nutritional aspect and improving the process of making food from the crop.
Wolkite University and Arba Minch University are conducting various research activities on Inset crop in the past several years.
Yohannes Gebru (PhD) is Vice President of Wolkite University on the Department of Research, Community Service and Technology Transfer. He said that the university is undertaking various research activities and community service tasks to support the development endeavors of the society in the surrounding areas of the town.
As to him, the university’s research and community servicing activities focuses on solving problems of the day to day life of the community and to exploit the available potential resources for the development.
Among the priority tasks that the university is undertaking for years is conducting research on Inset crop. Located in the Guraghe Zone’s capital, Wolkite town, the university’s research activities give due priority to study the nature, features and modernizing the process of preparing food from Inset, according to Yohannes.
The university has conducted continuous researches for the past eight years on Inset and it already has established an Inset research site in the surrounding fields.
The Vice president stated that Wolkite University’s researches on Inset mainly focus on three basic areas. First, conservation of Inset and its varieties remain the first priority of the research activities. He further said that, Inset has many varieties and conserving all the varieties and researching the types of each variety is the priority topics of the university. “In our Fereze site, that was prepared to conserve Inset, the university already conserved around 71 different varieties of Inset,” Yohannes stated.
Each variety of Insets has its own character and benefits, as to the vice president. “Even the growing ecology varies from place to place,” he noted.
Therefore, to protect the crop from climate change and global warming, conserving all varieties of Inset remains crucial. In terms of benefits, some varieties are useful for medication while others are important for meeting food demand, this makes conserving all varieties crucial, he added.
Yohannes reiterated that due to some natural calamities, most varieties are becoming disappearing from the fields of the farmers. Hence, by collecting each variety from different areas, the university conserved all the varieties it knows so far and has continued researching the varieties so as to collect and conserve all of them. “We have conserved the varieties and by multiplying each variety through biotechnology tissue culture, the university is distributing the varieties seedlings to the community,” he stated.
The second priority of the university’s research focuses on Inset disease protection. Disease remains among the serious threat for the survival of Inset, Yoahannes said.
The disease named Bacteria Wilt threatens the crop’s existence. So far, a lot of researches have been conducted to save Inset from extinction and researches still continued. “Recently, Addis Ababa University announced a new finding on protecting Inset from disease and this is a good move,” Yohannes reiterated.
The third focus area of the research of the university related to food making, according to the vice president. the traditional process of making food from Inset consumes time and energy. “The process of making food from Inset is tiresome. Women waste a lot of energy and time during the process of making a diet from Inset,” Yohannes said adding to solve the problem with regard to the process, efforts are underway to produce a modern machine that can easily process the plant for food. As to him, women are suffering and wasting a lot of time in processing Inset and the university continued efforts to find modern way of preparation.
“Wolkite University gives special focus for Inset, because the community around the university is Inset producer and consumer,” Yohannes stated. “We have the highest responsibility in this regard and we are investing our maximum efforts in developing the researches and utilize the findings as inputs for improving the crop variety”. Especially, in simplifying the traditional food production processing, and in that regard, university’s researchers invented a modern processing machine. “In our university, Dr. Helen Woldemichael invented two machines that can be able to process Inset through modern way,” the vice president said adding that the invented machines were tested and are properly functional.
As to him, the Biotechnology Institute of the university played pivotal role in inventing and tasting of the machine functionality and the demo was successful. However, still, the machines need a little adjustment to make it perfect. After the adjustment, manufacturing the machines and supplying it to the community will be the next step.
As to him, the production and supply of the machines to the market at large scale needs a large amount of finance. The university is looking for grants in reaching the community in this regard.
Meanwhile research is also conducted on effects of bio-slurry on Inset, the positive and negative effect of slur on the environment, diversifying the types of food and recycling the waste.
The second research project which is conducted by Food Science Engineering targets at diversifying the diets produced from Inset. The research project aims to produce Inset juice like Banana juice. The third project targets to use the wastages of Inset for other purposes. “We have come to learn that a paper can be produced from Bi – products of Inset and that its bi products can be mixed with sand to make asphalt,” Yohannes stated. Civil Engineering department is conducting a research in this regard.
The forth research project focus area is climate impact of Inset. “The areas with rich Inset production have better food security comparably” Yohannes said. This shows that Inset is drought resistant and expanding Inset plant to other parts of Ethiopia may help to ensure food security, he added. Researches are also being conducted on the food security and economic benefits of Inset by the Department of Agricultural Economics. The University is also working to expand harvesting and developing the consumption habit of the crop in the other parts of the country.
BY DARGIE KAHSAY
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD SUNDAY EDITION 11 FEBRUARY 2024
