Marketing of Indigenous Fruits in Southern Africa - Indigenous Fruit Trees in the Tropics: Domestication, Utilization and Commercialization

Agriculture Reference

In-Depth Information

Transport costs

Collectors usually walked from the forest to their homes. Those who sold on-

farm waited for wholesalers to come to their houses, but collectors who sold at

district/growth point, roadside and Mbare markets transported the fruits using

Scotch carts, bicycles, buses and sometimes hired pick-up trucks. The type and

number of vehicles used by the traders depended on the distance to the market

and the quantity of fruits handled. The cost of transport also differed

depending on the means of transport and the market location. For example,

Gokwe traders who used buses to transport fruits to the Gokwe growth point

market paid 50% more than their counterparts in Murehwa. This might have

been a consequence of the remoteness and poor road infrastructure of Gokwe,

which was served by few buses compared with Murehwa. In addition to

transport costs, traders who transported the fruits to distant markets had to

organize transport and to bargain for transport fares, which are sometimes

unreliable and expensive. Furthermore, they had to ensure proper handling of

the fruits during loading and unloading from the vehicles.

Fruit losses

Because of the unreliability of transport, perishable fruits and poor handling

techniques, there was significant loss of fruit. For the 1999/2000 ripening

season, U. kirkiana fruit losses accounted for 32% of all marketing costs incurred

by producers located in Mbare market compared with 13% in Gokwe. The

distance from the production sites and the large volume of fruits transported

caused high losses of fruits at Mbare market. Gokwe production sites are near

Gokwe market, and relatively small volumes of fruit are transported there

compared with Mbare. Furthermore, buses are not designed to transport fresh

produce and bus owners cannot pack the fruit bags separately from the hard

luggage. This lack of flexibility of the bus workers led to high fruit losses

experienced by retailers and vendors transporting fruits to Mbare market.

For fruits that did reach the market, lack of storage facilities and processing

opportunities shortened the fruits' shelf life. As a result, traders were not able to

recover their costs. Lack of storage facilities caused massive losses due to

perishability. Almost 50% of producers, 63% of retailers and 75% of wholesalers

reported that perishability was a problem. To solve this problem, Harare district

council designated Tsiga open market, within the Mbare suburbs, as a seasonal

market for U. kirkiana fruits. Also, traders incurred considerable losses in the

processes of loading and packing the fruit bags on the lorries, buses and pick-

ups, handling during travelling and unloading from the vehicles.