PROJECT SUMMARY

Project name

SMIL Sorghum project

Project short-name

ESP

AMU project code

EXT/USA/VPRP/13/2015

Project phase

I

Partner country

Kansas State University, USA

AMU coordinating office

VP for Research and Partnership

Project type

Research

Project location

Gamo and Konso zones

Target communities

Enset and Sorghum growing farmers

Project coordinator

Dr. Addisu Fekadu, Dr. Elisa Karkle

Principal investigator

 

Co-investigators

Dr. Sabura Shara

Total project budget ( )

2,440

Project start

5-Jan-23

Project end

31-Dec-23

Progress reporting period

Quarterly

Financial reporting period

Annually

Contact person

Addisu Fekadu
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Project Management Office

Office of the Director for Grant and Collaborative Project Management:
Dr. Thomas Torora (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

 
PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Cereals constitute most of the world s carbohydrate food supply of which sorghum ranks among the top five. It is part of the traditional diet of many population groups and is growing in importance worldwide due to its gluten-free, high nutrient composition, along with increased drought and heat tolerance compared to wheat and corn. Merera is a newly registered open pollinated variety that has shown interesting aroma attributes in preliminary testing of a co-fermentation with enset. Enset (Ensete ventricosum) is a perennial and climate resilient food crop for over 20 million Ethiopian people. It is a high yielding, drought tolerant and cultivated for generations in Ethiopian highlands and have a potential of expansion to the world s agroecological niches. Kocho and bulla are the two main products from the enset plant. There is opportunity for value-addition of enset products as part of gluten-free products, alone or combined with sorghum. Despite the potential, data regarding the functionality and nutritional properties of enset products and co-fermentates of enset and sorghum is limited. Fermentation has been shown to enhance sorghum functionality in baked products and it is hypothesized that sorghum-enset co-fermented flours and/or enset fermented products are uniquely suited to enhance the quality of gluten-free products. In this project, our goal is to investigate the applicability of fermented enset and sorghum-enset flours in gluten-free products. Our objectives are to characterize the composition and functionality of the individual flours and evaluate their performance in three gluten-free systems. Expected outcomes include potential for increased nutritional value of gluten-free products and data to support an increase in demand of the two crops.

Publications

https://smil.k-state.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/2023CharacterizationFunctionalityFermentedSorghumEnsetFlours.pdf