Limpopo Business 2020/21 edition

OVERVIEW
Agriculture
Marula is Limpopo’s super fruit.
Marula wine tasting laboratory.
Image: University of Limpopo
A
festival, an industrial park, the source of a world-famous
liqueur and a centuries-old beer recipe – and now the fruit
of the marula tree is inspiring an associate professor at the
University of Limpopo to make a marula fruit wine.
The women of Limpopo have been making beer from marula
fruit for longer than records exist. They continue to make it in large
quantities every year in February at the time of the Marula Festival, a
major contribution to the arts and culture and tourism calendar. Distell
makes and distributes Amarula cream liqueur around the world.
The Limpopo Department of Economic Development and
Tourism (LEDET) wants to see the University of Limpopo doing
more research on the possible uses for the fruit, including jams
and cosmetics. To that end, a Marula Industrial Hub at Phalaborwa
is envisaged that will provide a platform to further exploit the tasty
marula fruit, which has a high vitamin C content and is much loved
by elephants. Facilities at the hub will include a centre for research
and processing facilities to create more value from the raw product.
Advisors will be available to help small-scale farmers and SMMEs
enter the formal economy.
One researcher already underway is Professor Kgabo Moganedi.
Drawing on time-honoured (and organic) fermentation processes,
Moganedi has created a clear alcoholic beverage and is reported
to be almost ready to scale up production. The project has received
Sector Insight
Farmer Production Support
Units are being rolled out.
funding from National Research
Foundation (NRF) under the
Indigenous Knowledge Systems
(IKS) and from the Technology
Innovation Agency (TIA).
Cotton growing is experiencing
a renewal in Limpopo,
and the Provincial Government’s
programme for revitalising
irrigation schemes is helping. In
Ephraim Mogale Municipality
about 345 hectares of cotton
has been planted which will
benefit 74 small-scale farmers in
the area. The projected harvest
is 522 tons and an estimated 300
seasonal jobs are expected to
be created during the harvesting
period.
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