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Yvettep
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 784
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, November 26, 2005 - 10:03 pm: | 
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I love this story--A nice one as we think this weekend about thankfulness and harvest... From http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/national/13222880.htm
WICHITA, Kan. - When Kansas farmers Gary and Gil Alexander were approached with the idea of growing teff, an Ethiopian cereal grain, they were intrigued by the crop's connection to Africa.
The cousins, who are descendants of former slaves who first settled the northwestern Kansas town of Nicodemus, decided to plant their first teff crops there last spring in hopes of finding a cultural niche.
"Teff is a crop grown primarily in Ethiopia, and using the connection between Ethiopia and Nicodemus being a black settlement, we thought teff would be something to try," Gil Alexander said.
Backed by a grant from the Agriculture Department, the Alexanders and other black farmers planted test plots earlier this year. So far, they are reporting good news.
"It grew well in western Kansas," said Sarah Evert, a graduate student at Kansas State University who is studying the teff crops. She said the grain was "pretty drought-tolerant and hardy."
Ethiopians use teff to make a flat bread that is a staple in their diet. The crop's low gluten content makes it an alternative to wheat for people who are sensitive to gluten.
Edgar Hicks, a grain marketing consultant in Omaha, Neb., approached the Alexanders with the idea of growing teff.
A native Louisianan with no family ties to Nicodemus, Hicks has nonetheless been drawn to the all-black settlement.
In the late 1870s and early 1880s, thousands of former black slaves - known locally as "Exodusters" - flocked to the fertile Kansas prairie in search of a better life. Of the half-dozen or so black settlements here, only Nicodemus survived. The town, about 300 miles west of Kansas City, is now a protected National Historic Park site.
Just three black farmers still toil the land around Nicodemus, and the Kansas Black Farmers Association is comprised of only about a dozen black farmers who are still left on their family farms.
"Times are so tough for farmers now," said Hicks, who got a $197,000 grant last year to fund teff research in Kansas. "Tough times have made people more open to look at this as not so much a crackpot-type thing."
Gil Alexander agrees.
"The farmers are not getting a fair shake," he said. "We raise a lot of wheat, a lot of sorghum. I've raised my best sorghum crop ever this year, and it's not worth anything."
Gary Alexander recently harvested the last of his 2 acres of teff. The plot was small enough to be cut with hedge trimmers.
It reminded him of the old days, when farmers would still cut wheat by hand and big shocks of wheat would stand in the fields. He knows of at least one commercial grower in Oklahoma who grows hundreds of acres of teff, enough to run his combine to harvest it.
Someday, big teff fields could dot the countryside around Nicodemus. But not even those farmers who are toying with growing it in hopes of supplementing their income expect it will ever become a primary crop.
"This is wheat country," Gil Alexander said. "The plains of Kansas have always been wheat country, and I don't see that changing."
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Blaklioness
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Blaklioness
Post Number: 124
Registered: 10-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, December 01, 2005 - 03:20 am: |
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I'm sure injera lovers will be pleased! It's awesome that Blacks here are able to make a tangible cultural-scientific connection to the Motherland. |
Renata
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Renata
Post Number: 237
Registered: 08-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, December 01, 2005 - 05:35 pm: |
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I LOVE injera bread!!!! Wish I knew how to make it. |
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