Wonder bean can nourish the poor
G’town pair on a mission to plant it widely
TWO Grahamstown eco-gardeners are hoping to improve rural nutrition in the Eastern Cape by encouraging poor people to plant a hardy Himalayan wonder tree, products of which are normally sold in health shops at high prices.
Since the beginning of the year, Dan Long and Rob Davies have planted 2 000 moringa trees at a farm nursery, where they are piloting growing the plant in the Eastern Cape.
They have also supplied more than 100 seedlings to two Wild Coast schools and are encouraging children to eat the legume’s seed pods and leaves to combat malnutrition.
“We want to provide people with nutritional autonomy,” Long said.
“There are massive disparities in [access] to nutrition, especially in the Eastern Cape, where malnutrition is a major problem.”
Besides the pods and leaves of the hardy legume being of high nutritional value, the bean husks are used around the world to purify water, while extracted oils can be used for cooking, drinking and bio-diesel.
“In India they cook and eat the bean-like pods, which they call drumsticks,” Long said.
Although common in the East for centuries, planting of the medicinal tree has spread to regions like Nicaragua, Hawaii, the Philippines, Ghana and even other parts of South Africa.
“Moringa is being grown [elsewhere in] South Africa on a large scale but as far as we know, we are the first people piloting growing it in the Eastern Cape,” Davies said.
Long, a recent Rhodes University psychology graduate, said moringa was not considered an invasive alien species.
He and Davies developed their passion for sustainable ways of feeding the needy while training to become permaculturists and learning how to grow food organically.
It was through the organic grapevine that they heard about the many uses of the fast-growing, drought-resistant moringa tree.
They teamed up to start a small business, Local Motive, to try to encourage rural planting.
Davies said the plant was one of only a few in the world that were high in amino acids, as well as protein.
“It is sad that moringa powder and oil is very expensive and can only be bought [over] the counter at South African health shops.
“It should be growing in every yard in the rural areas, because it really does combat malnutrition,” Davies said.
In tablet or powder form, moringa can cost R1 or more a milligram and people often take a 5mg dose daily.
The men were inspired to grow the plant on a large scale by fellow Rhodes University student Damian de Wet, who did a thesis on using moringa as a pioneering plant to help with agrarian reform in the country.