Enhancing enset agriculture with mobile agri-data, knowledge interchange and climate adapted genotypes to support the Enset Center of Excellence

埃塞俄比亚是一个非洲国家，在最新的全球饥饿指数中排名104/119，2014 - 16年有28.8%的人口营养不良。营养不良每年造成的损失估计为47亿美元，相当于埃塞俄比亚经济的16.5%，具有重大的长期社会经济后果。虽然埃塞俄比亚在历史上一直是世界上最大的有针对性的粮食援助接受国，但即使在1980年代毁灭性的饥荒期间，埃塞俄比亚南部高地也几乎没有粮食不安全的报告。埃塞俄比亚南部高地的农业以enset为主，enset是该地区的淀粉主食。它具有独特的属性，可以提高种植它的社区的粮食安全。然而，由于该地区的孤立和偏远性质，以及认为enset是"穷人的食物"的看法，对enset的研究历来被忽视，而被谷物所取代。Enset是一种不寻常的作物/植物，与世界上最重要的水果香蕉密切相关。然而，enset的不同之处在于成熟的植物不产生可食用的果实（因为这些果实充满了许多大而硬的种子）。相反，植物生长3 - 12年，然后收获叶柄，假茎和球茎，并共同加工成淀粉食品。Enset是埃塞俄比亚约20%人口的主食，超过2000万人，主要分布在该国南部和西南部。在适当的条件下，估计60株成熟的植物可以为一个五到六口之家提供足够的食物。我们的英国和埃塞俄比亚大学和农业组织网络一直在研究埃塞俄比亚的遗传多样性和分布。我们的目标是确定和培育具有有用特性的品种，如增强的抗虫害或耐旱性，以及更好地了解其环境要求和生殖生物学。在这里，我们提出了一系列的影响力发展活动-与我们的埃塞俄比亚合作伙伴一起-帮助转化和嵌入我们的研究成果，为农村农民的实际成果和应用。我们有三个主题：1。支持Enset卓越中心的发展，这是一项区域性的Enset研究计划。我们将主要通过交换项目人员，鼓励发展新技能，新观点和促进新的合作来实现这一目标。我们的主要目标是鼓励传统上不同的和相对孤立的伙伴组织更密切地合作，以造福埃塞俄比亚。开发一个基本的移动的应用程序，为农民提供最佳当地基因型、疾病识别和最佳农艺实践方面的建议。根据我们的经验，这是直接向农民快速提供针对具体地点、准确和实用的建议的最佳方式。我们将使用智能手机的定位功能，咨询一个预加载模式的enset性能，建议最佳的地方品种给农民。我们还将把我们开发的疾病诊断ID表翻译成移动的友好型，并以五种最常用的语言提供，以帮助农民识别虫害和病原体。3.建立和发展三个本地的母巢苗圃，种植和销售精选的母巢地方品种。根据我们现有的研究结果，我们将选择10个在一系列农业生态条件下表现良好（高产，抗病）的基因型。利用当地民族植物学知识对这些基因型进行快速克隆繁殖，将使幼苗繁殖产生数千个个体，这些个体可以出售给农民（以很小的标准市场价格），以支持苗圃的长期可持续性。作为非洲人口第二多的国家，埃塞俄比亚的人口预计到2050年将达到1.72亿。因此，我们认为迫切需要开发未充分利用的作物，以应对这一粮食安全挑战。

Ethiopia is an African country ranked 104/119 in the most recent Global Hunger Index, with 28.8% of the population undernourished from 2014-16. The annual costs of malnutrition have been estimated at $4.7 billion, equivalent to 16.5% of Ethiopia's economy, with significant long-term socio-economic consequences. Whilst Ethiopia has historically been the world's largest recipient of targeted food aid, little food-insecurity has been reported for the southern Ethiopian highlands even during the devastating famines of the 1980s. Agriculture in Southern Ethiopian highlands is dominated by enset, the regional starch staple. which possesses unique attributes that enhance the food security of the communities that grow it. However due to isolated and remote nature of the region, and the perception that enset is 'poor persons food' research on enset has historically been neglected in favour of cereals. Enset is an unusual crop/plant, closely related to banana - the world's most important fruit. However enset differs in that the mature plant does not produce edible fruit (as these are filled with numerous large and hard seeds). Instead the plant is grown for 3-12 years, before the petioles, pseudostem and corm are harvested and collectively processed into starchy food products. Enset serves as a staple food for about 20% of the Ethiopian population, over 20 million people, mainly in the south and south-west of the country. Under appropriate conditions it is estimated that 60 mature plants can provide enough food for a family of five to six people.Our network of UK and Ethiopian Universities and agricultural organisations have been studying the genetic diversity and distribution of enset in Ethiopia. Our aim has been to identify and characterise enset varieties with useful traits, such as enhanced pest or drought tolerance, as well as better understanding its environmental requirements and reproductive biology. Here, we propose a series of impact development activies - together with our Ethiopian partners - to help translate and embed our research findings into practical outcomes and applications for rural farmers. We have three main themes:1. To support progression of the Enset Center of Excellence, a regional enset research initiative. We will do this primarily through interchange of project staff, encouraging the development of new skills, new perspectives, and fostering new collaborations. Our key goal is to encourage traditionally distinct and relatively isolated partner organisations to work more closely together for the benefit of Ethiopia.2. Developmen of a basic mobile app to advise farmers on optimum local genotypes, disease identification and best agronomic practice. From our experience, this is the best way of rapidly delivering location specific, accurate and practical advice directly to farmers. We will use smart phone location capabilities to consult a pre-loaded mode of enset performance to recommend optimum landraces to farmers. We will also translate the disease diagnostic ID sheets we have developed to be mobile friendly, and available in the five most spoken languages, to help farmers identify enset pests and pathogens.3. To install and develop three local enset nurseries, to grow and distribute selected enset landraces. Based on the findings of our existing research, we will select 10 genotypes that perform well (high yield, disease tolerant) across a range of agroecological conditions. Rapid clonal propagation of these genotypes using local ethnobotanic knowledge, will enable multiplication of plantlets to generate thousands of individuals that can be sold to farmers (for a small standard market price) to support the long-term sustainability of the nursery.As the second most populous African country, the population of Ethiopia predicted to reach 172 million by 2050. Thus we believe there is an urgent need to develop underutilised crop plants, to rise to this food security challenge.