Indigenous fruits: A sleeping nutritional giant

MASEMBE TAMBWE

THE Ministry of Agriculture has plans underway that aim at making indigenous fruits like jackfruit, tamarind, baobab, bread fruit, Indigo fruit, chaste berry ‘sexy’ for farmers to cultivate for their nutritional and economic values.

The ministry’s Assistant Director in the Crop Development Directorate, Mr Beatus Malema exclusively told the ‘Sunday News’ that jackfruit is among many nutritious fruit found in the country and the Ministry of Agriculture has the responsibility of promoting crops due to their potential in terms of economic benefit, food security and nutritional aspect.

“Jackfruit belongs to a group of crops/fruit that we call indigenous that most of them are very nutritious, not affected by climate change, not easily attacked by pests and diseases,” he explained. Jackfruit is the largest treeborne fruit in the world - one fruit can weigh between 4 and 40 kilogrammes and contain hundreds of seeds that are rich in protein, potassium, calcium and iron - all of which are important for bodily growth.

Mr Malema said that these fruits/crops have been given a special priority by the Ministry of Agriculture where as it has assigned the Tumbi Research and Training Institute located at Tabora region to identify, collect, propagate, and protect the trees in order to make sure these kind of crops/fruit do not disappear He said that, promotion of these crops/fruits goes together with the assured provision of planting material and respective market.

The research institute is now working on coordinating collection of planting material and it is in its initial stage of preparing a project that will focus on the promotion and protection of indigenous fruits In an article entitled ‘Africa’s Indigenous Fruit Trees: A Blessing in Decline’ on the Environmental Health Perspectives website states that plenty of African farmers grow commercially popular fruits that are exotic to the region, such as avocados, oranges, mangoes and papayas. However, relatively few intentionally grow indigenous fruits.

“There are more than eight hundred fruit species in this region alone and how many do you see in the market - three or four. So there’s huge potential that will be lost if we don’t do something,” said Ramni Jamnadass, leader of the Quality Trees Global Research Project at the Nairobi-based International Centre for Research in Agro forestry (ICRAF). While millions of households in Vietnam, Bangladesh, Malaysia and elsewhere across South andSoutheast Asia are incorporating the jackfruit into their dishes, India remains reluctant.

Reportedly, up to 75 per cent of jackfruit grown in India goes to waste, partly because the fruit goes bad if it’s not eaten or preserved within a few weeks. Historically, jackfruit has a reputation for being a poor man’s fruit. It’s not the kind of thing that many people would ever think of buying because it grows everywhere in certain parts of India.

Ms Fatnaz Saleh, a businesswoman in Dar es Salaam, said that many people treat jackfruit as an inferior fruit largely because of the filthy areas they are sold and the outlook of the fruit but believes that this perception can change if more supermarkets stock them.

“Increasingly, we are seeing jackfruit being sold in the centre of the city and nicely packed, however, many middle income earners who are health conscious still don’t buy because of the worry that the fruit wasn’t properly handled by the seller,” she cited.

The Ministry’s project coordinator and horticultural crops expert, Ms Tabu Likoko said that they don’t think the fruit is inferior rather one that is not gaining popularity because it is not found in every region in the country and it is not grown in as field crop, but a fruit at homesteads like the bread fruit in Coast Region. The horticulture expert said that the selling of this fruit becomes difficult sometimes due to its nature of being big in size so one cannot eat it alone or carry it very easily; it needs to be cut in pieces.

“However, nowadays along Samora Avenue and other streets, jackfruit is now packed and a lot of people are buying the fruit. So it is not true that Tanzanians are seeing the fruit as inferior deemed for the low class, low income earners cannot afford to buy few jackfruit cloves for 2000/-,” she sighted.

The Institute of Traditional Medicine at the Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS)– Department of Medical Botany, Plant Breeding and Agronomy, Dr Joseph Otieno told this paper that he wasn’t aware if anybody has done research on jackfruit rather relies on online information.

So far they filter and rely on online posts. Ms Likoko cited that there are several researches going on indigenous fruits and that jackfruit is one of the potential fruits that have been analysed on its nutritive quality.

However, the aforementioned project will also cover part of nutrition. She added that there was need for more comparative studies on cost benefit ration with other several fruits to rule out as jackfruit (pictured below) being the most potential cash fruit.