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Michael Tome 

Business Reporter

National trade development and promotion body, ZimTrade in collaboration with the Campaign for Female Education (CAMFED), is setting up a baobab processing plant in Mudzi, Mashonaland East Province, in its pursuit of rural industrialisation and women empowerment.

Scheduled to be operational by August this year, the plant will benefit consortiums of young women who are already involved in the harvesting and trading of baobab fruit.

The establishment of the manufacturing plant will see the value addition of baobab fruit into powder while the seeds will be used for oil extraction.

ZimTrade and CAMFED are working with Baona Roots, a consortium of young women from Nyahuku Village, Mudzi Ward 1, who have been in the baobab fruit trading for a long while.

The women have been selling baobab fruit in its raw form, which meant limited returns but now stand a chance to realise more from its value addition in a development expected to see them grow their footprint on the local and export markets, with support from ZimTrade.

CAMFED is the financial and technical partner for the programme.

The value-addition initiative will enhance earnings by up to five times through baobab fruit powder production and edible oils for export.

Baobab fruit, which was declared a superfood in 2015, is a natural endowment, abundantly available in Mudzi.

Also known by its scientific name “Adansonia digitata”, baobab fruit is rich in ascorbic acid, vitamin C, calcium, potassium, magnesium, and antioxidants.

The kernels of the fruit are a good source of energy, protein, fat, calcium, potassium and magnesium.

ZimTrade has been hand-holding the women-led enterprises and recently facilitated their exhibitions at Zimbabwe International Trade Fair and  Intra-African Trade exhibitions for them to appreciate the importance of their business.

This has cultivated new markets and samples have already been sent to several potential markets.

In an interview with The Herald Finance & Business, ZimTrade chief executive officer Mr Allan Majuru said his organisation was targeting remote areas so that they benefit from indigenous resources found in their localities.

He said the idea was to have a countrywide reach making sure that no communities and no one were left behind.

“So we have done more than 20 clusters across Zimbabwe and here in Kotwa, Mudzi District the idea is to make sure that there’s beneficiation of baobab fruit resource.

“If you look at it previously the players were just selling raw powder into the local market but what we have come to help them increase their footprint.

“The drive is meant to strengthen the commercialisation of indigenous resources as an anchor to export growth going forward,” said Mr Majuru.

Manufacturing equipment for powder extraction and oil expression is being developed by the Harare Institute of Technology (HIT)  and about 5 machines are ready for                    use.

CAMFED district operations officer Mrs Tatenda Taruvinga said this drive was following the script of heritage-based education, which is being spearheaded through the education 5.0 philosophy.

“So, we think that seeing children through school is not enough and we are taking it further to give interventions beyond school. So, in this instance, we have a group of 10 young women whom we are supporting. We are introducing enterprise development programs which are now supporting these young women in their baobab business.”

They were already in Baobab and some of them have said they have been trading Baobab since childhood. But now, we are saying, value add the Baobab, and increase the price, and make a better living out of it. We are seeing rural industrialisation, and women empowerment in action here,” said Mrs Taruvinga.

Heritage-based education inspires consortiums and individuals to explore and develop products or services that are unique to their local situations.

Miss Mellisa Goba (22) who is a member of  Baona Roots said the programme had the potential to change their way of life and standard of living.

“Wayback we used to sell a bucket of unprocessed baobab at US$0,50 but we are now selling at US$1, but this intended project will see us getting five times more, we want the programme to succeed so that our lives get better also,” said Ms Goba.

Miss Selina Chirapu who is also part of the consortium said, “We had no thoughts about value-adding baobab to enhance our income.

“We are grateful to those spearheading the value addition initiative. Collaborating with these organisations has immensely changed our lives.”

In Zimbabwe the baobab fruit is readily available in arid areas and the product is mostly sourced from Mudzi, Chirundu, Chipinge and Birchenough.