(18 Sep 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Mudzi, Zimbabwe - 22 August 2024
1. Wide of Mudzi resident Loveness Bhitoni and others collecting baobab fruit
2. SOUNDBITE (Shona) Loveness Bhitoni, Mudzi resident:
++SOUNDBITE OVERLAID BY SHOT 3++
“We didn’t harvest any crops this year, we are only able to survive because of the money from baobab fruits. We are only able to buy corn and salt only. Cooking oil is a luxury because the money is simply not enough.”
3. Various of Bhitoni collecting boabab fruit
4. Wide Loveness carrying a sack full of baobab fruit on her head
5. SOUNDBITE (Shona) Loveness Bhitoni, Mudzi resident:
++SOUNDBITE PART OVERLAID BY BY SHOTS 6 & 7++
"The fruit is in demand but the trees did not produce much this year, so sometimes I return home without filling a up a single sack. The prices are extremely low sometimes buyers offer 50 cents to a dollar for a 5 kg bucket. I need five sacks to buy a 10 kg packet of cornmeal.”
6. Wide of Bhitoni offloading baobab fruit from sack
7. Close of Bhitoni sorting her baobab fruit
8. Wide of Mudzi ward councillor Kingstone Shero in conversation with fellow villager
9. SOUNDBITE (Shona) Kingstone Shero, Mudzi ward councillor:
++SOUNDBITE PART OVERLAID BY BY SHOT 10++
“When the buyers come to take our product they have their own gazetted prices, but what I think they should do is to meet and consult us as the local leadership and we agree on pricing. People have no choice because they have nothing. The buyers are imposing prices on us and we don’t have the capacity to resist because of hunger.”
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Mudzi, Zimbabwe - 23 August 2024
10. Various of workers inside factory cracking and processing baobab fruit
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Mudzi, Zimbabwe - 22 August 2024
11. Various of Bhitoni cracking baobab fruit
12. Wide of sunset behind boabab trees
STORYLINE:
Since childhood, Loveness Bhitoni has collected fruit from the gigantic baobab trees surrounding her homestead in Zimbabwe to add variety to the family’s staple corn and millet diet.
The 50-year-old Bhitoni never saw them as a source of cash, until now.
Climate change-induced droughts have decimated her crops.
Meanwhile, the world has a growing appetite for the fruit of the drought-resistant baobab as a natural health food.
The baobab trade, which took root in her area in 2018, would previously supplement things like children's school fees and clothing for locals of the small town of Kotwa in northeastern Zimbabwe.
Now, it's a matter of survival following the latest devastating drought in southern Africa worsened by the El Niño weather phenomenon.
“We are only able to buy corn and salt," Bhitoni said after a long day’s harvest. "Cooking oil is a luxury, because the money is simply not enough. Sometimes I spend a month without buying a bar of soap. I can’t even talk of school fees or children’s clothes."
The global market for baobab products has spiked, turning rural African areas with an abundance of the trees into source markets.
The trees, known for surviving even under severe conditions like drought or fire, need more than 20 years to start producing fruit and aren't cultivated but foraged.
The U.S. legalized the import of baobab powder as a food and beverage ingredient in 2009, a year after the EU.
Together with China, the U.S. and Europe now account for baobab powder's biggest markets.
The Dutch government's Center for the Promotion of Imports says the global market could reach $10 billion by 2027.
AP Video by Nqobile Ntshangase
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22 сен 2024
