Sukulwenkosi Dube
THE marula tree has become a life-changer for the people of Bulilima District as many villagers in the drought-hit area are turning to its wild fruit for a living. Its fruits, normally known in vernacular as Inkelo, are not just the despised dry and hard seed but a money generating asset. Elderly people and children collect the fruit once it has dried and crack it for purposes of securing a snack.
Judith Ncube, 54, a farmer from Natane area in Bulilima District, is one of the many villagers making a living as a marula farmer. Since engaging in this project in 2010, Ncube has managed to put food on the table for her family.
The fruits have become a valuable asset for her as she uses them to produce facial products which she sells to villagers. Her facial products have become popular with teenagers and young women who desire to maintain healthy skins.
Ncube is the chairperson of Vusanani Enterprise, a group comprising 10 women from Natane area who are engaged in marula harvesting. The group produces marula oil and marula butter from the wild fruits.
“Marula trees are very common in our area. They thrive so well. At first the fruits that fell to the ground were useless to me but with coaching I’ve since discovered their benefits. They’ve become a valuable asset to us. We’re a group of 10 women and we extract oil from marula nuts which people use as a lotion for the body and face. The oil can also be used for cooking purposes.
“We also produce marula butter which can be used as spread on bread. We do all of this work from our homes,” said Ncube. The benefits drawn from the marula tree are spreading to other villagers outside Ncube’s group.
When the marula fruits fall to the ground, local communal farmers collect them, peel the skin using sticks and leave the nuts exposed. The communal farmers then leave the nuts to dry and later crack them with stones and hammers to extract the kernels.
Ncube says the farmers then sell the kernels to her group, Vusanani Enterprise, at $5 per kilogramme. The group uses an oil pressing machine to extract the oil, a process similar to producing peanut butter from groundnuts.
“Collecting marula fruits and cracking them involves a lot of labour and we don’t have the necessary machinery. This is why we engage other farmers to do that work. But they don’t have the equipment hence they do the cracking manually.
“We’ve a machine for pressing the cracked marula kernels. When we press them we extract marula oil and marula butter at the same time. We then allow the mixture to settle for about two weeks to enable us to separate the oil from the butter,” she said.
Ncube says they pack the marula oil separately from the marula butter. She says she and her colleagues pack the oil in 50ml bottles which they sell for $3 while a 100ml container sells for $6. The group buys 4kgs of cracked kernels from the farmers for $20 in order to produce a litre of oil. They can raise $60 after selling the litre of oil.
Ncube says Vusanani Enterprise makes a good profit after selling the marula oil and butter.
Each group member earns about $200 within a space of three months. Ncube says they have managed to buy 10 cattle using money which they earned from the project and they shared the cattle among themselves.
The enterprising hardworking women have also managed to secure three more cattle for a pen-fattening project which they established.
“At first we were just selling our oil without realising much profit as we were not pricing our produce properly. We later received training on business management under the Forestry Forces programme.
“We were equipped with skills on how to manage our business, how to calculate our profits and how to maximise production. The training has helped in a great way as we’re now functioning as a proper cooperative with proper business management standards,” she said.
Vusanani Enterprise hopes to improve its packaging and acquire proper working space in order to improve quality of the products.
Recently Plumtree Town hosted the launch of a Buy Bulilima, Mangwe and Plumtree Town SMEs campaign to encourage locals to buy local products.
Bulilima Forestry Forces project officer, Reckson Matengarufu says the district has 32 groups which are involved in processing marula fruits. He says the groups have an average of 15 people each comprised of villagers from Natane, Huwana, Ndolwane and Bambadzi Wards.
Thirty-one groups are involved in collecting and cracking the marula fruits while only one group —Vusanani Enterprise — are involved in producing marula oil and butter.
Vusanani Enterprise is also the only group that has access to a machine. Matengarufu says the lack of machinery was slowing down production for marula farmers.
“At the moment we’ve one oil press which is being used by Vusanani Enterprise. The other farmers engaged in the nut cracking process use hammers and stones for this purpose. This slows down their progress as a lot of nuts have to be cracked to produce a kilogramme of kernels.
“We’re in the process of acquiring three more oil presses which means that we’re going to have three more groups engaging in the process of producing oil. We’re also trying to acquire machinery for cracking the nuts,” he said.
Matengarufu says some farmers are selling cracked nuts that are yet to be processed into oil and butter owing to the lack of machinery.
Bulilima District Forestry extension officer, Fortunes Matutu, says there was a fair distribution of marula tree in Bulilima, with most being concentrated in various wards along the Thekwane River.
He says the marula fruits season starts in December and ends in April. The season is at its peak from January to March and it is during this time that local farmers engage in the process of collecting and drying the marula fruits.
“Marula trees are an important asset as a number of products can be extracted from its fruit. Other products extracted from marula fruits include jam and feed for livestock. The oil produced from marula fruits can be used in making soap, perfumes as well as bio oil. Some restaurants use marula oil to prepare their food instead of vegetable oil.
“Marula kernels are also served in aeroplanes and hotels as a snack. Some chocolates are produced with marula nuts added onto them,” said Matutu.
He says Bulilima marula farmers are facing challenges in accessing large markets as they did not yet have the capacity to meet large targets for some customers who want to buy in bulk.
Matutu says some local farmers were also failing to meet set hygienic standards as they did not have proper working space. Poor hygiene standards, he says, discourage established companies from buying marula products from local farmers.
The picking of marula fruits has always been common in marula concentrated areas within the district but Bulilima villagers started engaging in production as a source of livelihood in the early 2000s.
The government encourages villagers to utilise natural resources around them to sustain their families.
Matutu said: “Natural resources have proved to be a reliable source of livelihood for a number of villagers in the district.
“Some villagers are engaging in basketry, selling of thatched grass, selling of wild fruit and selling of mopane worms (amacimbi) among other activities”.