Turning dirt into cash
EIGHT villagers from Tsholotsho District in Matabeleland North Province are eking out a living from collecting disposable opaque beer tetra packs and utilising them as pods to grow fruit seedlings for sale from their nurseries.
Four of the villagers embarked on a programme to grow fruit trees in 1982 and received small polythene packets to sow their seeds from the Forestry Commission. In 1993 two more joined and to date the group has grown to eight.
The villagers use tetra packs of opaque beer commonly known as shake shake, which are littered by imbibers at the service centre and various beer drinking outlets and fill them with soil mixed with manure and thereafter plant seeds of various fruits including vegetables with each member growing about 1 000 trees a year on their nursery. Three of the nurseries are located within the service centre while the other five are at surrounding villages.
A nursery is a place where plants are propagated and grown to usable size. They include retail nurseries which sell to the general public, wholesale nurseries which sell only to businesses such as other nurseries and to commercial gardeners, and private nurseries which supply the needs of institutions or private estates. Some retail and wholesale nurseries sell by mail.
Nurseries may supply plants for gardens, agriculture, forestry and conservation biology.
“We grow various fruits including the exotic ones, which are found in the forest. Before we used shake shake containers to grow our seedlings we used to get small polythene packets from the Forestry Commission but with the amount of litter caused by the shake shake containers we resorted to utilising them.
“Through these nursery projects we have managed to supply to various schools in the district and most homesteads now have at least a fruit tree which is ideal in terms of improving health as fruits have vitamins and other nutritional values. At least each household is assured of reaping a particular fruit a season,” said Mr Amos Nyoni of Amacebo Aloncedo Nursery.
He said this in an interview with Sunday Business during a Tsholotsho District media tour on solid waste management organised by the Environmental Management Agency on Monday.
Mr Nyoni said the grouping was going to approach Tsholotsho Rural District Council for land to embark on a combined extensive nursery project and even seek markets beyond the district’s borders.
“The Rural District Council has agreed in principle to allocate us land to grow our project. We intend to supply fruit trees even to towns and even go a step further to have some of our exotic trees being exported.
“However, at the moment we are facing challenges to reach out to all corners of the district with our seedling because of transport as we ferry them using bicycles and one can’t travel for a long distance using this mode of transport,” said Mr Nyoni.
Environmental Management Agency provincial manager Mrs Chipo Mpofu-Zuze said the project was playing a pivotal role in preserving the environment through curbing pollution and ensuring reforestation.
“We really appreciate the role being played by these nurseries. First and foremost through the solid waste management exercise as they are using the tetra packs which are thrown away by opaque beer drinkers for potting their seedlings. Secondly they are also assisting in re-greening the environment whereby they have a programme of donating the trees or selling them to schools in the district and individuals,” she said.
Mrs Mpofu-Zuze said apart from being a solid waste management exercise, the nursery projects played a significant role as income generating initiatives.
“The nursery projects have also become a form of employment creation and revenue with the members selling for cash or exchanging with grain. Last year one of the nursery owners managed to get two tonnes of sorghum through exchanging his seedlings with small grains and as we speak that same individual has 120 kilogrammes of small grains,” she said.