Fruit trees for micronutrient-rich diets in Zambia

Agnes Gachuiri is used to working in tough places. In one case, she brought fruit trees to reformed gang members in an informal settlement in Nairobi. Her aim: to help them to continue to transition out of crime and gain benefits from urban agroforestry.

But now she is working on this project in Zambia. Its setting is also tough. Zambia has high levels of rural poverty (about 80%, according to government surveys), and stunting for children is widespread. Growth faltering usually begins at around six months after mothers stop exclusive breastfeeding.

“Children aged 6–23 months are usually vulnerable to stunting because of factors such as lack of complementary foods containing the necessary nutrients which leaves them vulnerable to opportunistic infections resulting in poor health outcomes and ultimately stuntedness,’ write Zambian academics Bupe Bwalya, Musonda Lemba and colleagues.

The aim of the project is to increase fruit trees on farms so that families, particularly women and children, have the micronutrients they need to thrive.

Agnes has worked in several African countries, including her homeland of Kenya where smallholder farmers commonly grow fruit trees for fruit for home consumption and sale. Zambia, however, is different, she says.

“What is very specific about Zambia is that they have very high diversity and use of wild foods,” says Agnes. “They don’t grow a lot of fruit trees on their farms. They harvest from the wild.”

Getting nutrition right for families with trees is her life’s work, and she loves it. She collaborates with another young Kenya woman scientist, Alice Karanja. Together they are working out what fruit grows where and the farming families’ preferences, often using a game as one of their methodologies.

“We are working in three provinces,” says Alice Karanja. “Central and Eastern Provinces are more or less the same. They have access to forest areas where they are allowed to collect food, like green leafy wild vegetables, wild fruit and insects. They grow a bit on their farms. But they don’t buy much fruit in markets.”

In contrast, says Alice, the third province, Muchinga is much drier, and families rely on the market and grow and collect far less.

Such information is vital as the two nutrition and natural resource specialists work out which tree species should be the focus where and on what should they put their efforts. “I am designing the portfolios of 10-12 trees so that at least one tree is fruiting every month, and we close the hunger gap,” says Agnes.

Alice, meanwhile, has been crunching the data on fruit trees, and has found that besides wanting fruit trees that are common across the tropics like mangoes and guavas, women express an interest in growing indigenous species.

So far, she says, the most frequently mentioned species: are Strychnose cocculoides or Utusongole in local languages; Parinari curatellifolia or Impundu; Ximenia americana or Nyumbuzya); and Uapaca kirkiana or Masuku.

Thank you for supporting this project. We have raised almost $4000! Shortly we will start working with our Zambian colleagues to collect seed and set up tree nurseries to generate these trees. Our second photo is of Ximenia americana, which despite its species name, is native to Africa. A short spiny tree, it is hardy and adapted to the local ecology. Its fruit is packed with vitamins.