(18 Sep 2024)
ZIMBABWE TREE OF LIFE
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
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LENGTH: 5:16
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Mudzi, Zimbabwe – 22 August 2024
1. Various of the baobab tree with fruit hanging
2. Various of resident Loveness Bhitoni collecting baobab fruit in a nearby forest
3. Various of Loveness carrying a sack full of baobab fruit
4. Various of Loveness offloading the baobab fruit in her granary at her home
5. SOUNDBITE (Shona) Loveness Bhitoni, Mudzi resident:
“We didn’t harvest any crops this year, we are only able to survive because of the money from baobab fruits. We are only able to buy corn and salt only. Cooking oil is a luxury because the money is simply not enough. Sometimes I spend a month without buying a bar of soap. I can’t even talk of school fees or children’s clothes.”
6. Various Loveness cracking baobab shells
7. SOUNDBITE (Shona) Loveness Bhitoni, Mudzi resident:
"The fruit is in demand but the trees did not produce much this year, so sometimes I return home without filling a up a single sack. The prices are extremely low sometimes buyers offer 50 cents to a dollar for a gallon (5kg bucket). I need five sacks to buy a 10kg packet of cornmeal.”
8. Various Loveness cracking baobab fruit
9. Wide pan of the baobab tree
10. Close-up of baobab fruit hanging from tree
11. Tilt down of baobab tree and Kingstone Shero walking past
12. SOUNDBITE (Shona) Kingstone Shero, Mudzi ward councillor
“When the buyers come to take our product they have their own gazetted prices, but what I think they should do is to meet and consult us as the local leadership and we agree on pricing. People have no choice because they have nothing. The buyers are imposing prices on us and we don’t have the capacity to resist because of hunger.”
13. Wide herdsman driving cattle
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Mudzi, Zimbabwe – 23 August 2024
14. Wide workers weighing and carrying sacks of baobab fruit into factory for processing
15. Close-up of baobab fruit inside sack
16. Various workers inside factory cracking and processing baobab fruit
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Harare, Zimbabwe – 5 September 2024
17. Wide Prosper Chitambara on his laptop
18. SOUNDBITE (English) Prosper Chitambara, Economic analyst
“When you go to most countries they have actually been able to establish a commodity exchange, I think that actually helps in terms of ensuring that there is fair valuation of those commodities and that the ordinary farmer or the women and children who are actually collecting these baobabs don’t get short changed at the end of the day because currently it’s really the people that are are actually buying who have greater leverage because there is no market to determine issues of pricing of those baobabs.”
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Mudzi, Zimbabwe – 22 August 2024
19. Wide Loveness walking outside her homestead
20. Various shells of cracked baobab fruit
21. Wide of sunsets on baobab tree
STORYLINE:
LEADIN:
In rural Zimbabwe, people are turning to foraging baobab fruit as a crucial source of income, as climate change devastates traditional crops.
With global demand for baobab products rising, locals endure harsh conditions to collect and sell the fruit, struggling to survive in a shifting economy.
STORYLINE:
Since childhood, Loveness Bhitoni has picked baobab fruits from the gigantic trees surrounding her homestead in Zimbabwe to add variety to the family’s staple corn and millet diet.
She never saw the iconic trees as a source of cash, until now.
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Author: AP Archive
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