Addis Ababa: For any first-time visitor to an Ethiopian restaurant, the signature experience is tearing off a piece of injera, a pancake-like bread, and using it to scoop up spicy meat or vegetable curries.

The spongy, almost sourdough-like taste of injera comes from a grain called teff, a tiny seed found throughout the Ethiopian and Eritrean countryside on golden, grass-like stalks. Like quinoa before it, teff is slowly hitting the mainstream in the West, touted as a new, gluten-free superfood high in protein and fiber and low in sugar.

But until just recently, an obscure Dutch agronomist held the patent for making pretty much anything out of teff flour, strangling Ethiopia's ability to market and sell its millenia-old grain. The tale of how that happened – and how Ethiopia won back control of its staple crop – is an object lesson in how the worldwide practice of patenting agricultural products often harms those in the developing world.

A farmer displays his harvest of teff grain at a warehouse in the village of Germama, Ethiopia. Credit:Bloomberg

In the case of teff, the Ethiopian Institute of Biodiversity Conservation partnered with a newly formed Dutch company called Health and Performance Food International (HPFI) in 2005. Ethiopia agreed to provide HPFI, run by agronomist Jans Roosjen, with a dozen varieties of teff, which would then be turned into products for the European market. Proceeds would be divided between the two entities.