The Feasibility of Small-scale Indigenous Fruit Processing Enterprises in Southern Africa - Indigenous Fruit Trees in the Tropics: Domestication, Utilization and Commercialization - page 273

15 The Feasibility of Small-scale

Indigenous Fruit Processing
Enterprises in Southern Africa

D. DU P.S. J ORDAAN , 1 F.K. A KINNIFESI , 2 C. H AM 3 AND
O.C. A JAYI 2

1 Commercial Products from the Wild Group (CP Wild), University of Pretoria,
South Africa ; 2 World Agroforestry Centre, SADC-ICRAF Agroforestry
Programme, Chitedze Agricultural Research Station, Lilongwe, Malawi ;
3 Commercial Products from the Wild Group (CP Wild), University of
Stellenbosch, Matieland, South Africa

15.1 Introduction

In the tropics, indigenous fruit trees play vital roles in the livelihoods of rural
households as well as in food and nutritional security, especially during periods
of famine and food scarcity (Akinnifesi et al. 2004, 2006, Chapter 8, this
volume), although they are becoming increasingly important as a main source of
food to supplement diets in better times (Saka et al. , 2002; Mithöfer, 2005; Saka
et al. , Chapter 16, this volume). Indigenous fruit trees offer great potential to
rural dwellers in sub-Saharan Africa who are caught in a poverty trap, living
with chronic hunger and poverty, and are ravaged by ill-heath (such as
HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases) and malnutrition; a condition that is only
likely to get worse (FAO, 2002; Blair Commission Report, 2005). The per capita
consumption of foods and fruits is low among rural households. Although much
of the emphasis in southern Africa in the last decade has been on measures that
aim at increasing staple food production for smallholder production, it is
becoming increasingly clear that improving the productivity of staple crops alone
will neither meet the full subsistence requirement of rural households nor
provide feasible opportunities for getting out of the vicious cycle of poverty.
Agricultural productivity must be linked effectively with, and be responsive to,
market demand, and smallholders must see the whole farm in terms of business
portfolios of options. Thus there is a need for farmers to develop business skills,
acquire better access to market information, and focus greater attention on
product quality and the opportunities for value adding, both for wild tree
products and for tree crops grown on-farm. Recent research has suggested that
rural communities can increase their nutritional well-being and incomes by
utilizing and marketing fruit tree products from forests and horticultural tree