enset

Ensete ventricosum relative of the banana with edible corms and stems. It was domesticated between 5,000 and 10,000 years ago but is now grown only in southern Ethiopia. It is resistant to drought and when mashed and fermented can be kept for months, or even years, before being made into a wide variety of foods. Its fibre can also be used to produce material.

Wild enset grows over much of western and southern Africa. In 1993 a US research team was set up to explore the possibility of cultivating enset in the drought-stricken north of Ethiopia.