Teklebrhan Negash

The global prevalence of junk and nonorganic foods has made it increasingly difficult to find sustainable organic food options, despite their potential health benefits. This issue is exacerbated by factors such as production scarcity, climate change, and the widespread availability and affordability of junk food. Additionally, there is a lack of research and attention toward orphan crops, which have high nutritional value and significant health benefits, resulting in food and nutrition insecurity. One such underutilized crop is teff, a small grain cereal grown in Eritrea that is highly nutritious, resilient to climate variability, gluten‐free, and rich in dietary fiber. Teff requires low agricultural input, making it a superfood for humans and a valuable animal feed source. The lack of scientific research on teff’s agronomic characteristics, yield potentials, and nutritional benefits hinders its global recognition and distribution. To address this, the Addey Agricultural and Food Cooperative Research and Development team has reviewed existing scientific knowledge on teff. This review covers the botanical description, origin, production, climatic and soil requirements, agronomic practices, and improvement techniques of teff. Also, we explore teff’s nutritional and phytochemical composition, potential health benefits, and use as animal feed. The review highlights teff’s global potential and identifies gaps in current farming practices, recommending modern, technology‐based methods for sustainable production and productivity.

This paper presents the wind energy potential and wind characteristics for 25 wind sites in Eritrea, based on wind data from the years 2000–2005. The studied sites are distributed all over Eritrea, but can roughly be divided into three regions: coastal region, western lowlands, and central highlands. The coastal region sites have the highest potential for wind power. An uncertainty, due to extrapolating the wind speed from the 10-m measurements, should be noted. The year to year variations are typically small and, for the sites deemed as suitable for wind power, the seasonal variations are most prominent in the coastal region with a peak during the period November–March. Moreover, Weibull parameters, prevailing wind direction, and wind power density recalculated for 100 m above ground are presented for all 25 sites. Comparing the results to values from the web-based, large-scale dataset, the Global Wind Atlas (GWA), both mean wind speed and wind power density are typically higher for the measurements. The difference is especially large for the more complex-terrain central highland sites where GWA results are also likely to be more uncertain. The result of this study can be used to make preliminary assessments on possible power production potential at the given sites.