Guide cited as vital for crops like Teff

By Muluken Yewondwossen

The implementation of genome editing will allow significant improvement in orphan crop production and productivity, experts underline.
As genomic experts signal, the genome editing guideline is expected to be fully developed by the beginning of the coming Ethiopian New Year.
In the past few years, experts have been engaged on different initiatives to come up with the draft guideline to allow the research and implementation of genome editing, a new technology that helps to improve the biodiversity particularly the agriculture sector.
Regarding the guideline reviewing process, senior experts from the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) and Bio and Emerging Technology Institute have been keenly involved in the matter. Likewise through other sessions, senior experts from the Program for Biosafety Systems at International Food Policy Research Institute also took part in the review.
As the experts cite, several international workshops and validation workshops have been carried out to come up with the final draft.
The guideline preparation considers a benchmark of Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa from Africa, and India and Vietnam from Asia, USA, Canada and Argentina from North and South America, and European Union.
The Biosafety proclamation that was amended in 2015 was set as the benchmark for the development of the guideline.
Under the initiative to come up with legal bandage, the capacity building at EPA and formation for center of excellence has been considered as a nucleus center to control the scheme, identify the strategy of focus area on the issue and to provide training.
The hub is expected to be a Holetta Agricultural Research Center, which is one of the well-established facilities in the continent.
“We have already developed the Ethiopian genome editing advocacy strategic plan,” stated Firew Mekbib, Professor at Haramaya University and well known researcher in the agricultural sector.
The EPA of Ethiopia is undertaking an in house review to issue it in the coming very few months, according to officials at the authority.
According to the information that Capital obtained, the final validation workshop has been conducted a few weeks ago for the upcoming guideline.
The genome editing projects that do not have the required data will be regulated under biosafety proclamation 896/2015 article six which is stated as a special permit.
The objective of the guideline is to provide technical guidance to applicants and the authority on which genome editing organisms and or products to regulate under the proclamation.
The guideline will legitimize the technology to be tested and developed.
There are ongoing genome editing projects on sorghum, tef, brassica carinata and coffee.
Senior experts like Firew stated that the genome of any organism is imperfect that can be edited to near perfection.
As experts who are involved on the sector opine, teff will be the first product to test the genome editing guideline in Ethiopia.
Firew argued that a country that endorses a given technology should solve its own problem. Putting that to consideration, applying this new technology on teff is crucial to avert lodging, which is a major challenge for teff production and productivity, and there is need to come up with a semi-dwarf type of teff variety.
As experts show, lodged teff has low seed quality, yield loss up to 25 percent and is difficult to mechanize the farming practice.
Lodging substantially affects teff productivity since the plant has a tall and slender stem. Different researches indicated that when fertilizer is applied to increase the productivity of the crop, stems of tef grow taller and become even more susceptible to lodging, resulting in significantly reduced quantity and quality of grain and straw.
Firew recalled that there were several researches carried out to solve the problem for the past several years while the result was very low but under genome editing dwarf teff shall be available.
Gene confers lodging resistance in teff have been already identified by researchers mainly by Ethiopians like Getu Beyene, abroad.
“The legal framework will be tested on teff and will also have a policy implication since the issue is of main concern to the government and Ethiopia as a nation,” Firew said, adding, “Teff, which is a staple food for over 100 million people in eastern Africa, is an orphan crop and not an international crop like wheat or maize. Therefore, any other body may not solve our problem due to that the role of the government and a strategy is a must and it would be a breakthrough to open the door for other orphan crops of Ethiopia.”
The Ethiopian Biodiversity Institute, Africa’s largest and oldest seed bank, holds 6,000 different accessions of teff.
Genome editing technology can also develop new sorghum varieties resistant to striga which would significantly improve the yield.
Experts claim that Ethiopia is the origin of sorghum and that it is the second in terms of production and fourth in terms of area in the world.
Currently, 10,000 accessions are in Ethiopia gene bank.
In northern, northwest, west, central, some part of southern and eastern part of the country, about 1.8 million hectares are said to be covered by sorghum annually with the involvement of five million farmers. This means that one third of the Ethiopian population is dependent on it.
According to Alemu Terfessa (PhD), one of well-known researchers and Coordinators on the Ethiopian Sorghum Improvement Program at Melkassa Agricultural Research Center, Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research, on average the grain’s productivity is 23 quintal per hectare, while there is a yield of over 60 quintal per hectare with improved seeds.
Annually, the country produce over 40 million quintal of sorghum.
It takes fourth place in terms of production and area after teff, maize and wheat.
Regarding utilization more than 72 percent is sourced as of food for households rather than raw material for industrial production like other African nations and other countries.
There have been different research initiatives that targets to improve the productivity of the grain that have borne fruit, while further researches are also being conducted with collaboration of different partners.
“The sorghum production and productivity target from 2020-2030 aims to boost the output that is currently over 60 quintal in research fields,” Alemu said.
In Africa, Kenya, Malawi and Nigeria have already issued a gene editing guidelines.
Firew said that regarding genetically modified organisms technology, Africa has been a follower and has been forced to become a dumping spot, “Nonetheless, we have to catch up on genome editing.”
Regarding conventional breeding schemes, through its research hubs Ethiopia has released 1,490 different improved verities for the past seventy years.

By our staff reporter
During a discussion with media leaders on Thursday, August 4, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed expressed Ethiopia’s ambition to become the world’s third-largest exporter of coffee. Currently ranked as the 8th largest coffee exporter globally, Ethiopia has been diligently working towards this goal. In recent years, millions of coffee seedlings have been planted in the country, reflecting a strong commitment to the industry’s growth. Prime Minister Abiy expressed his hope that within the next two to three years, Ethiopia will successfully ascend to the coveted position of the third-largest exporter of coffee beans.
In 2021, Oromia signaled continued expansion of seedling coffee and replacement of decades-old trees. In its recent article, the World Bank (WB) said that almost 80 percent of Ethiopia’s 1 million hectares of coffee trees were underproductive because the trees were not trimmed often enough.
According to the WB article, the quality of Ethiopian coffee isn’t the problem. About 95% of production from the country’s diverse coffee varieties is organic, traditionally cultivated without the use of pesticides and fertilizers. Demand isn’t the issue either.
The article however questions, why is Ethiopia’s coffee productivity lagging behind other leading coffee-producing countries such as Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia and Vietnam? As the research shows, the problem boils down to a lack of pruning.
Shimelis Abdisa, President of Oromia region, back then said that unlike the preceding trend for the past couple of years the regional administration has given fundamental attention for the bean production and productivity.
“In general, previously, the Ethiopian government was only generating revenue from coffee but not investing on it. The farmer was the only actor on the total production activity,” he said.
The WB said that the low productivity of Ethiopia’s coffee trees poses an obvious problem for the more than 2 million smallholder farmers dependent on coffee production for their livelihoods.
Shimelis said due to different reason including the trading scheme, the farmers’ revenue from the bean have been declaimed that led them to cut the coffee bush and replace them with alternative profitable crops.
“Based on understanding the farmers and the sector challenges, the regional government is taking action to come up with a solution,” the regional President said.
“In our region for the last two years we have introduced three major changes on the sector. Basically we have improved the marketing system by creating alternative trading for Ethiopian Commodity Exchange by issuing an export license for the farmer enabling them for direct export which also contributed to reduce the illegal trade,” Shimelis told Capital.
“The new trading plays a key role. It has shown positive results for instance the price of red cherry that was 12 birr per kg in the past has now reached 30 birr because of the new scheme,” he explained.
The other initiative introduced in the past two years was rejuvenating and replacing the aged and unproductive coffee trees by new seedling.
The regional President said that the coffee trees in the region are aged up to 40 year, which is a factor for small harvest.
“Rejuvenate existing trees by trimming and replacing of the old trees and seedling new coffee trees in new areas has been conducted for the past two years,” he said.
“In 2019, we have planted over 800 million new coffee seedlings, 900 million in last year and in this rainy season we will plant 1.1 billion coffee trees in the region,” Shimelis elaborated.
The World Bank article said that different initiative have been involved to elevate the challenges like Stumping involves pruning older and less productive trees down to just a stump. “This stimulates the growth of new sprouts that develop into new branches within a few months,” it added.
According to the region’s plan, the target is increasing the coffee export by two folds in minimum in the coming few years. “In the past budget year for instance for the first time in the region the coffee export have increased by 17 percent and in this year it is expected to climb to 19 percent,” he explained.
In the coming budget year the export is estimated to be boosted by 25 percent because the seedling that was planted two years ago will have started production.
The price increment at farmer’s level under one of the three pillar of change for the sector has also discouraged the illegal market. The effect on the illegal channel is said to contribute to attaining the target set for the coming year.