Ancient 'tree of life' provides new superfood, but harvesters live in poverty

The baobab tree, known as the "tree of life" for its resilience, is growing in popularity across the world as a natural health food - but the harvesters are barely surviving

Loveness Bhitoni, a 50-year-old from Zimbabwe, has turned to the baobab trees that dot her homestead as a lifeline amid climate change-induced droughts that have ravaged her crops.

Previously just a supplement to her family's diet of corn and millet, the baobab fruit has now become a crucial source of income. With the world increasingly seeking out the fruit for its health benefits, Bhitoni starts her days before dawn, braving hot, thorny terrains and potential wildlife encounters to collect the fruit for sale.

Since 2018, the trade in baobab has helped cover expenses like school fees and clothing in her small town of Kotwa, but with the latest severe drought in southern Africa, exacerbated by El Niño, it has become about sheer survival.

"We are only able to buy corn and salt," Bhitoni shared, exhausted after a day's harvest. "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."

There's been a surge in the market for baobab products, transforming areas in rural Africa brimming with these trees into hotspots for raw materials. Known for their incredible resilience, even in extreme conditions such as droughts or fires, baobabs take over two decades to bear fruit and are typically not cultivated, but rather, gathered from the wild.

People like Bhitoni have surged in numbers to meet the increasing demand. The African Baobab Alliance, whose membership spans across baobab-rich countries on the continent, estimates that over 1 million rural African women could benefit economically from harvesting the fruit, which thanks to its hardy shell has a long shelf-life.

This alliance educates community members about food safety and advocates for safer harvesting methods like collecting the fruits from the ground instead of climbing the massive trees, a practice which is still common especially among men. Indigenous to Africa, the baobab or “tree of life” can be found in many countries including South Africa, Kenya, Sudan and Senegal, with Zimbabwe hosting around 5 million trees as per Zimtrade, the national trade agency.

Meanwhile, the health advantages of the baobab remained largely overlooked until pioneers like Gus Le Breton helped kickstart the industry.

"Baobab did not develop into a globally traded and known superfood by accident," Le Breton explained, detailing the extensive regulatory, safety, and toxicology testing that was necessary to gain approval from authorities in the European Union and United States. "It was ridiculous because the baobab fruit has been consumed in Africa safely for thousands and thousands of years," said Le Breton, an expert in African plants used for food and medicine.

The baobab fruit is celebrated for its health benefits, including its antioxidant properties, vitamin C content, and essential minerals like zinc, potassium, and magnesium. In 2009, the US gave the green light for baobab powder as a food and beverage ingredient, following the EU's approval a year earlier.

However, introducing the sharp, tart-like taste to foreign palates required numerous visits to Western and Asian countries. "No one had ever heard of it, they didn’t know how to pronounce its name. It took us a long time," admitted Le Breton, clarifying that the tree's name is pronounced BAY-uh-bab.

Today, the US, Europe, and China are the largest markets for baobab powder, with predictions from the Dutch government's Center for the Promotion of Imports that the global market could hit $10billion by 2027. Le Breton's association forecasts a 200% increase in global demand between 2025 and 2030 and aims to boost consumption among Africa's health-conscious city dwellers.

Companies like Coca-Cola and Pepsi have launched product lines featuring baobab ingredients. In Europe, the powder is touted as having “real star qualities” and is used to flavour drinks, cereals, yoghurts, snack bars and other items. A packet of a kilogram (2.2 pound) of baobab powder sells for around 27 euros (about $30) in Germany. In the UK, a 100-millilitre (3.38-ounce) bottle of baobab beauty oil can fetch £25 (about $33).

The burgeoning industry is showcased at a processing plant in Zimbabwe, where baobab pulp is bagged separately from the seeds. Each bag has a tag tracing it back to the harvester who sold it. Outside the factory, the hard shells are converted into biochar, an ash given to farmers for free to create organic compost. Harvesters like Bhitoni can only dream of affording the commercial products made from the fruit.

She earns 17 cents for every kilogram of the fruit and she can spend up to eight hours a day walking through the sunbaked savanna. She has exhausted the trees nearby. “The fruit is in demand, but the trees did not produce much this year, so sometimes I return without filling up a single sack," Bhitoni said. "I need five sacks to get enough money to buy a 10-kilogram (22-pound) packet of cornmeal.”

Some individual buyers who cater to the growing market for the powder in Zimbabwe's urban areas exploit residents' drought-induced hunger, offering cornmeal in exchange for seven 20-litre (around 4-gallon) buckets of cracked fruit, she said.

"People have no choice because they have nothing," stated Kingstone Shero, the local councillor. "The buyers are imposing prices on us and we don’t have the capacity to resist because of hunger."

Le Breton is optimistic about future pricing as the market expands. "I think that the market has grown significantly, (but) I don’t think it has grown exponentially. It’s been fairly steady growth," he said. "I believe at some point that it will increase in value as well. And at that point, then I think that the harvesters will really start to be earning some serious income from the harvesting and sale of this really truly remarkable fruit.”

Zimtrade, the government export agency, has expressed concern over the low prices paid to baobab pickers and is considering partnering with rural women to establish processing plants. The challenging situation is likely to persist due to the weak bargaining power of fruit pickers, including children, according to Prosper Chitambara, a development economist based in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare.

On a recent day, Bhitoni moved from one baobab tree to another, carefully inspecting each fruit before leaving the smaller ones for wild animals such as baboons and elephants to eat — a long-standing tradition. “It is tough work, but the buyers don’t even understand this when we ask them to increase prices,” she said.