Spatiotemporal interaction of tef head smudge disease (Curvularia spp.) and tef (Eragrostis tef) in the Western Amhara Region, Ethiopia, under the moderate (SSP245) and extreme (SSP285) climate change scenarios.
Mekonnen MB, Abeje GD, Mekonnen MA
Climate Adaptation
PubMedTef is the grain behind injera, the flatbread eaten daily across Ethiopia and increasingly found in health food stores worldwide — and climate change is on track to push a devastating fungal disease into millions more acres of tef farmland within your lifetime.
Tef is a tiny, super-nutritious grain grown in Ethiopia that many people depend on for food. Scientists used computer models to map where a fungal disease affecting tef is likely to spread as the climate changes over the next few decades. They found that by 2050, the overlap between where tef grows and where the disease thrives could nearly double under a high-emissions scenario, putting farmers and food supplies at serious risk.
Key Findings
Under current climate, tef head smudge disease and tef crops overlap on 9,659 hectares; this overlap could nearly double to 15,846 hectares by 2050 under a high-emissions scenario (SSP585).
Tef crop coverage in the Western Amhara Region is projected to shift significantly — shrinking to 19.97% of the region by 2070 under the extreme climate scenario (SSP285), down from 33% today.
MaxEnt climate models predicted tef distribution with 89–90.5% accuracy and tef head smudge disease with over 93% accuracy, lending strong confidence to the projections.
chevron_right Technical Summary
A fungal disease called tef head smudge is threatening tef, a critical grain crop for food security in Ethiopia. Climate change will dramatically shift where both the crop and disease can survive, with some scenarios showing the disease spreading into far more tef-growing areas by 2050.
Abstract Preview
Tef is an important food security orphan crop in the Western Amhara Region, Ethiopia. However, its production is constrained by tef head smudge disease caused by Curvularia spp. Therefore, this stu...
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