Rural communities and farmers join hand in major fruit project

A unique project was launched last week with the aim of transforming rural communities into team players with regard to local mango and avocado production.

Launched at the Madzivhandila Agricultural College in Thohoyandou on October 15, the Tshakhuma/Tsianda Project aims to empower rural communities to maintain and manage mango and avocado production on a collective and sustainable community basis.

Mango and avocado trees, apart from those on commercially run farms, are not in short supply in the Soutpansberg area. The problem, however, is that these ‘wild’ mango and avocado trees’ fruit is of poor quality. There is therefore no real demand for them apart from being bought up at next-to-nothing prices for atchar production or ending up at roadside fruit stalls.

The Tshakhuma/Tsianda Project aims to change this scenario by improving the quality of fruit, thereby creating a market for it.

The project entails community members’ going out and indentifying mango and avocado trees in their respective communities. These trees are then cut down to about chest height in a process known as topworking. As soon as new shoots appear on the cut-down trees, better grade mango and avocado varieties are then grafted onto them and, within three years, quality fruit can be harvested.

The project is monitored by the Madzivhandila Agricultural College, although it was initiated by local businessman Mr Dennis Gilbert from Specialised Oil Extraction, a company which, amongst others, extracts avocado oil. Together with partner Mr Kallie Röttcher, a well-known local avocado farmer, and the college, they have already top-worked about 500 avocado trees. Röttcher supplies the plant materials to be grafted free of charge and also supplies technical support in the form of trainers to assist community members in the process. Röttcher says he first realized the benefits of the process some 15 years ago when he top-worked one of his orchards, grafting plant material from a single super tree onto some 450 other avocado trees. Fifteen years on, the trees still bear quality fruit each year.

“The idea is to get increased fruit quality into the system,” says Gilbert. Better quality fruit will not only ensure these communities better prices, it also opens up the market for them to sell their harvest to, for example, fruit-processing factories. This is where Valley Farms comes in.

Valley Farms is a 75% community-owned fruit-processing factory in Levubu, bought by the Department of Agriculture. The factory produces fruit juices and dried fruit. According to the department’s Mr Cerneels Erasmus in Polokwane, the factory will greatly benefit from the project as it is at present running under capacity. Whereas these communities could not in the past sell to the factory because their mangoes were the wrong variety, the project has now opened up the market for them and they can now supply mangoes according to the factory’s specific requirements.     

  The two avocado varieties grafted onto the trees are hass and fuerte, with six varieties of mango chosen. The six varieties of mango chosen were specifically selected because they come into bearing at different times, thereby stretching the mango season from December to April. A longer season also means more income.

News - Date: 24 October 2008

Andries van Zyl

Andries joined the Zoutpansberger and Limpopo Mirror in April 1993 as a darkroom assistant. Within a couple of months he moved over to the production side of the newspaper and eventually doubled as a reporter. In 1995 he left the newspaper group and travelled overseas for a couple of months. In 1996, Andries rejoined the Zoutpansberger as a reporter. In August 2002, he was appointed as News Editor of the Zoutpansberger, a position he holds until today.

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