Will Ethiopia's teff be the next 'super grain'?

Nearby, other farm workers are using pitchforks to do the same job, throwing the grass into the air in an ancient process known as winnowing.

This is a harvest scene in rural Ethiopia, which at this time of the year is replicated across the length and breadth of the country.

The seed, or grain, in question is called teff.

Ethiopians have been growing and obsessing about teff for millennia, and it may be set to be become the new "super grain" of choice in Europe and North America, overtaking the likes of quinoa and spelt.

High in protein and calcium, and gluten-free, teff is already growing in popularity on the international stage.

Yet as teff is a staple foodstuff in Ethiopia, particularly when turned into a grey flatbread called injera, the country currently has a long-standing ban on exporting the grain, either in its raw form, or after it has been ground into flour.

Instead, entrepreneurial Ethiopian companies can at present only export injera and other cooked teff products, such as cakes and biscuits.

However, the hope is that if Ethiopia can sufficiently increase its teff harvest, then exports of the grain itself may be able to start in the not too distant future.

Air deliveries

"We started from scratch, and are now introducing our traditional food all over the world," says Hailu Tessema, founder of Mama Fresh, Ethiopia's first large-scale producer of injera.

 

Six days every week Mama Fresh uses Ethiopian Airlines to fly 3,000 injera flatbreads from Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, to Washington DC in the US.

Injera is also flown to Sweden three times a week, Norway twice a week, and Germany three times a month.

"Demand is increasing by about 10% every month," says Mr Tessema, 60, who does not see the ban on exporting teff seeds as a problem.

"It's better to export a value-added product as that creates more jobs." 

Mama Fresh employs more than 100 people, and plans to take on another 50 this year. It also works with 300 farmers supplying teff.

Mr Tessema started the business in 2003 with 100,000 Ethiopian birr ($5,000; £3,225), operating out of a rickety shack.

The firm's annual revenue now stands at around 17m birr ($836,000; £566,000), and last year the business moved into a new factory.

Inside the facility, blue barrels contain teff flour mixed with water, which is left to ferment for four days.

Afterwards, women pour small jug-sized amounts onto heated-clay cookers to sizzle and become injera, ready for packaging and speedy onward flights to eager overseas customers, mainly diaspora Ethiopians.

A tiny grain the size of a poppy seed, teff is ground into a flour which can also be made into loaves of European-style risen bread or pasta.

At London-based business, Tobia Teff, they use US-grown teff to make various breads and a porridge.

The company was founded by British-Ethiopian co-owner Sophie Sirak-Kebede, who originally opened an Ethiopian restaurant in the UK capital in 2003.

In 2008, she closed the restaurant to concentrate solely on selling teff.

"People are dreaming of teff nowadays, after thousands of years it has become the trendy thing over here," says the 58-year-old.

Tobia Teff's sales have increased by up to 40% during the last 14 months.

Even the UK's National Health Service has become a customer to cater for gluten-intolerant patients.

Achilles heel

Yet despite praise for teff's nutritional properties, its previously sheltered existence in Ethiopia comes with a drawback.

"Teff does not give much yield," says Zerihun Tadele, an Ethiopian researcher at the Institute of Plant Sciences at the University of Bern, Switzerland. "Very little research and investment has been done on the crop."