This indigenous fruit is the source of an income-generating project in the Northern Province, writes Thuli Nhlapo
A plan hatched by retrenched union members and their employer in 1998 to promote job creation in Northern Province’s poverty-stricken communities has started to bear fruit.
In the past year R340 000 has been spent on buying an indigenous fruit, marula, from the communities surrounding Mhala Development Centre in Bushbuckridge. The fruit is used to produce six products in the centre’s small plant, which employs local villagers.
Apart from the traditional beer that marula is famous for in rural areas, jam, poultry feed, juice, beer and cooking and cosmetic oils are manufactured at the centre.
“The money we get from selling marula to the centre might seem a pittance, but it has helped us a lot. We no longer depend on our husbands for everything and manage to buy things like toiletries and bread out of our own efforts,” says Lillian Hlatshwayo of Rolle village in Bushbuckridge.
Hlatshwayo’s business partners, Jane and Alice Dlamini, say their small business is a blessing in disguise because they do not have to report for duty every morning and suffer the inconvenience of travelling home late at night.
“We work under our home trees because that is where we pick up marula during the ripe season, and we also extract marula kernels from the stone while waiting for the fruits to ripen. We get paid twice for one fruit that is freely available,” they say.
The women are paid R20 for an 80kg bag of marula fruits and earn R26 for a kilogram of kernels. In summer the centre buys the marula fruit from the villages and then returns it to the women in winter so they can extract the kernels, which are used for oil production.
The Mhala Development Agency, a Section 21 company set up by the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) as its development wing, has employed 2166 people in 27 villages 2143 are women and 23 men. It is slowly becoming the main employer in the area.
The company was a negotiated deal between retrenched union members and the Anglo Coal mine in Arnot in 1991, when the two parties were looking for a strategy to help both retrenched members and the affected communities, Bushbuckridge being one of them.
The Anglo Coal and NUM Fund provided R1,6-million for the establishment of the Mhala Development Centre and R100000 for the initial research and development phase of the marula programme. In addition, the British Department of International Development has contributed R250 000 a year, and will do so until March 2003.
Most people in the villages say they are familiar with the marula tree and its fruits. They use its bark to treat dysentery and diarrhoea, insect bites and burns, while the essence from the leaves is used to treat burns and abscesses and its wood is used for the carving of furniture and other household items. Cattle feed on the fruit and the leaves, which are said to be high in vitamin C.
With the exception of Amarula Liqueur, which is now exported to more than 60 countries, the extent of the commercial opportunities of the fruit have not been realised, which is why the centre pilots projects for marula-oil commercialisation.
Officials involved in the oil project say the stone within the marula fruit contains kernels rich in oil. They have also discovered that marula oil is rich in oleic acid, which helps in the maintenance of healthy skin.
Oil is extracted at the Mhala centre using simple pressing and filtration techniques. No solvents are used, giving the oil a high purity that is improved by light refining to make it suitable for cosmetic applications. Cold pressing is said to preserve the active ingredients of the oil and the technology is highly recommended for use in rural areas.
The centre has sent marula oil samples to organisations throughout the world and to a number of potential buyers in South Africa. “We are currently negotiating a very large strategic arrangement with a refiner and a buyer overseas,” says project coordinator Girly Njono.