Accelerated Domestication and Commercialization of Indigenous Fruit and Nut Trees to Enhance Better Livelihoods in the Tropics: Lessons and Way Forward - Indigenous Fruit Trees in the Tropics: Domestication, Utilization and Commercialization - page 417

● Prioritizing IFTs based on household consumption and nutrition need to be

distinguished from priorities based on income and markets.

● Development of new IFT products for improved shelf life, nutrition, and

income values that can be produced by small-scale entrepreneurs and
private cottage industries, and benefit small-scale farmers in the
communities.

● Improvements in market infrastructures have been suggested, including

storage facilities and transport-related infrastructure, and removing the
marketing barriers that prevent women from changing from being retailers
to wholesalers, and unnecessary road checks and permits (Ramadhani,
2002; Schreckenberg et al. , 2006; Chapter 12, this volume).

● Promoting fruit-based enterprises as being credit-worthy would stimulate

wider and faster adoption, and promoting IFT domestication and
commercialization as an important contribution to the MDG is also
important (Leakey et al. , 2005; Schreckenberg et al. , 2006).

● Developing and supporting postharvest handling is also necessary,

including storage methods (to increase shelf life), drying, grading,
processing, packaging, certification and quality assurance.

● Droughts and climate change can affect fruiting potentials, growth cycles

and seasonal variability, and cause major reductions in fruit production
and quality. The impact of climate change on domesticated trees warrants
further research attention to ensure that sufficient resilience is built up.

These constraints could be overcome by community partnerships along the
supply chain, which would provide the opportunity for collaboration among
researchers, industry and community as business partners.

21.6.4 Policy considerations

In recent years, there has been increasing interest in the policies, regulating
bodies and institutions affecting domestication, utilization and commercialization
of indigenous fruit trees. The policies required for IFTs could be grouped as
legislative and regulatory, marketing, extension and research issues, with
considerable overlap between them (Schreckenberg et al. , 2006). Policy
constraints to the domestication of IFTs, scaling-up and commercialization have
been tackled in Chapter 17. The core policy priorities emerging from the
preceding chapters and general literature are as follows:

● Assessment of contribution to the national economy . The first step is to

include IFT data in national statistics of agricultural products in terms of
assessing their contribution to the national economy, and to devote
investment resources to their development (Schreckenberg et al. , 2006). It
is important to understand policy-related constraints and opportunities that
could contribute to policy discussions related to adoption. Policies
governing land and tree tenure need to be revisited in many parts of the
tropics. A good example has been described in Zimbabwe, where local
rules and by-laws limit the sale or movement of AFTPs from IFTs