Ensete (false banana) cultivation
Cultivo del ensete (falso banano)
- Date
- prehistoria (sin datación firme) · confidence low
- Place
- Southwestern highlands, Southern Nations, Ethiopia
- Credited to
- Gamo, Wolaita, Sidama, Gurage and neighbouring peoples
- Field
- Life & health
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A banana relative whose pseudostem and corm are scraped and fermented to make kocho and bulla. It is the crop that sustains intensive farming and high population densities in southern Ethiopia.
No archaeobotanical remains date the domestication; there is only indirect evidence (clone diversity, linguistics) pointing to millennia of cultivation. The 10,000-year figure sometimes cited lacks direct support. The date is indicative.
What it led to
- a staple and drought reserve in the southern highlands
- dense farming systems of the Gamo, Gurage and Sidama
- a root of Ethiopian food security