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DefendTheTruth
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Posts: 13262
Joined: 08 Mar 2014, 16:32

It Is Time For Ethiopia to Consider to get Its endemic Crops Patented duly

Post by DefendTheTruth » 13 Feb 2022, 14:15

There was a news about an international dispute over the patent rights over the Ethiopian endemic cereal crop called Teff and the flour made from it before a number of years. A crop known to have been grown widely only in Ethiopia so far for generations and widely also used.

This news attracted the attentions of many also due to its high nutritional value that has been lately internationally discovered as the Ethiopia Super Food Crop.

I came across the similarily well known crop commonly called in Ethiopia Gesho today, widely used as a vital ingredient of the house made Ethiopian Home Beer (also known as Tella, Farso and similar names in many different languages of the country).

I am not sure in this plant is harvested outside of Ethiopia, but we know for sure many other countries around the world don't use Gesho (scientifically called Rhamnus prinoides) for brewery, many countries use Hops in the place of Gesho, as an instance, even at the industry level of producing Beer.

According to a Wikipedia entry about this plant it too is used for many different purposes, including nutritional, medicine, religious and more values.

Unfortunately, the plant is also not yet so widely studied, not withstanding its such variety of use cases.
For example it seems to me that no one has so far studied and determined, scientifically, if Hops or Gesho is better suited in brewery for the internationally consumed top beverages, Beer.


Gesho can compete with, if not replace, the Hops in many countries and be used as a variety, at least, of Beer making.

I am also sure that there are many other plants and/or crops that need to attract attention and perhaps need to be commercialized. For that they also have to be patented in due time. They could be cash crops waiting to be harvested.





ኢትዮጵያ ድንቅ አገር ናት፣ ሕዝቦቿ ግ ን እርጉም ናቸዉ፣ ለዚህ ነዉ እስካሁን ያላለፈልን ና ራሳችንን መመገብ ያቃተን፣ እስካሁን።

sesame
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Joined: 28 Feb 2013, 17:55

Re: It Is Time For Ethiopia to Consider to get Its endemic Crops Patented duly

Post by sesame » 13 Feb 2022, 14:23

Sorry my friend, you can only patent what you invented. Crops in Ethiopia were invented by nature! What Ethiopia should do is process its crops and sell it to the world at 10 or more times of the raw crops it exports now. By now, there should have been an industry in Ethiopia to process coffee.

DefendTheTruth
Senior Member
Posts: 13262
Joined: 08 Mar 2014, 16:32

Re: It Is Time For Ethiopia to Consider to get Its endemic Crops Patented duly

Post by DefendTheTruth » 13 Feb 2022, 14:41

sesame wrote:
13 Feb 2022, 14:23
Sorry my friend, you can only patent what you invented. Crops in Ethiopia were invented by nature! :lol: :lol: :lol:
I am not sure, if I get your message. Why was it needed to patent Teff then? Okay, they were invented by nature but then protected by humans to sustain for generations, else would have been extinct, don't you think?

Many knowledges have been flown into persevering and protecting these crops, I just guess, because I am not an expert of the subject matter.

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