It’s been a good year – baobab harvesters

The area where baobabs are found is usually very arid and the climate not easy to grow crops in.  Many of the harvesters with whom I work have fields around their villages where they do dry-land cropping for food and to supplement income.  Dry-land cropping means that there is no irrigated water to the fields and they have to rely on rainfall.  The best grain crops to survive these conditions are sorghum and millet.  Even these crops often fail, but this year has been an exception with excellent rainfall through the area.  It was rare to see the fields around the villages so green and lush.

 

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2014 Mar: Baobab seedlings get big ideas!

2014 Mar: Baobab seedlings get big ideas!

In November last year EcoProducts did a workshop with 50 rural women harvesters in how to grow and conserve baobabs.  Each woman was given a seed and a planting bag to take home.  Well, when I visited the village this week, some of the women took me to see their so- called seedlings.  They had […]

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We’d like you to meet Terres D’afrique

We’d like you to meet Terres D’afrique

They've created a beautiful range based on African botanicals.  Their range is about a passion for nature, for Africa, for travelling the continent and exploring and discovering new plants, places and people. Their products are the result of a yearning to know and understand the full impact of what the African plant kingdom has to offer. […]

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2014 Jun: Coppicing Baobabs

2014 Jun: Coppicing Baobabs

When baobabs are still young they are vulnerable to damage.  This young baobab was damaged at the base, but it was helped to survive by coppicing (sprouting).  After a few years most of the coppice shoots die but two or three remain leaving the tree to develop into a multistemed tree which you can clearly see in […]

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