25 Apr 2018

Batswana have from time immemorial depended on natural resources occurring in their localities to improve food security.  

While arable agriculture and animal rearing has been the dominant economic activity, rural inhabitants have not shied away from going deep into the forests to forage for edible wild indigenous fruits which are known to contain vital nutrients and medicinal benefits.

These include but are not limited to Hoodia gordonii, an appetite suppressant, devil’s claw used for pain relief, morula, morojwa, mmilo,  motsentsela, mmupudu, motopi, mowana, motsotsojane, mokgalo, moretlwa, Morotologakgomo, Morotologapodi, mogwagwa and motoroko.

Rural inhabitants in Botswana possess knowledge of seasonal availability of wild edible fruits. However, increased changes in cultural lifestyles, reduction in biodiversity due to population explosion, deforestation and climate change have contributed to a decline in the consumption of some of the edible wild fruits.   This loss of biodiversity runs the risk of contributing to loss of knowledge and skills on the uses of nutritious indigenous wild fruits.  

Climate variability poses a threat to indigenous wild fruits as exemplified by drastic changes in rainfall patterns, temperature and changes in the trends of climatic elements. Any regaling of tales from the past would be incomplete without the mention of the edible indigenous wild fruit plants.

This is especially true for a majority of Batswana who lived during that period when agriculture was the mainstay of economic activity, both in the pre-independence and post-independence era. A mere mention of life in the cattle posts or lands is incomplete without stories from the forest where wild berries were gathered as a source of food.

Many parts of Botswana are famed for a variety of wild fruit trees. These trees produce wild fruits after the rainy season and usually ripen before the hot summer months. While some were consumed immediately after harvesting some were preserved for consumption during times of food scarcity. Some edible wild fruits serve as ingredients for local traditional alcoholic brews, especially moretlwa and morula.  

Who can forget the antics of those who consume khadi and morula beverages as they leave their watering hole headed to their homesteads? The commotion that they cause along the way is legendary, and these range from spewing unpalatable profanities or picking a fight with any stranger without considering the consequences. Some of the fruits were collected and given as snacks during traditional ceremonies. While others need a lot of rain to produce fruits, some of the trees can do well even in years of poor rains, which guarantees food security for rural inhabitants.

Botswana, which is endowed with rich flora consisting of edible wild and semi-wild berries, continues to realise the scarcity of some of these fruits in the natural ecosystem. This trend has also been attributed to shortage of rainwater as these fruits become less available even during seasons when they are expected.

Consequently, Batswana used these indigenous wild fruit plants as a hunger coping strategy to sustain their livelihoods. Of late, when urbanisation began to set in, some people in addition to consuming these wild fruits as a supplement to their diets also began to sell these fruits to earn income. However, things have changed as these wild fruits are no longer easily available due to a number of factors, including climate variabilities. 

This phenomenon has disrupted food security, including subsistence wild fruit gathering livelihoods and biodiversity losses. While some wild indigenous fruit trees are still there in the wild, their produce sometimes fails before ripening or reaching maturity.

An octogenarian in Jamataka knows all about wild indigenous fruit trees, as he grew up during an era when these occurred in abundance. Mr Jenamiso Ketogetswe is shocked that some of the wild fruits he grew up foraging as a small boy have disappeared. The old man who claims to have settled in Jamataka while it was still a cattle post some 40 years ago mentioned in an interview recently that wild berries were abundant in the past.

He said it was common for boys herding cattle to spend the whole day in the forest herding cattle while feasting on these natural resources. These included morojwa, mmilo and moretologa. This, he noted, happened during that time when people used to plough using cattle as draught power.

According to Mr Ketogetswe, it is not only wild berries that have disappeared. He posits that the Mophane worm, which is a rich source of protein is nowhere to be found.

 “People go as far as Mogapi in the Tswapong area to harvest it,” he noted.
 

On other issues, he explained that back in the days, khadi and morula were favourite home brews which were enjoyed by villagers in merriment during social occasions.
Currently, he observed that only morula and mmilo is available but those who harvest it have to travel a long distance to get it. This, he said, has its own challenges; as these wild fruits used to help ease hunger and were healthy.

“We are now exposed to these fruits that we buy from shops and we hear that they have a lot of dangerous chemicals, unlike our indigenous fruits,” he worriedly opined.

Most of the wild fruits, Mr Ketogetswe noted, were found along streams which were always teeming with water.

All this, he highlighted, is gone and the rains have become more erratic. His wife, Ms Sephonono Rantwa concurred, arguing that even wild mushrooms are rare nowadays.

 “In the past when it rained they used to appear all over the place. Currently, she said, you would be lucky to get them after the rains,” she asserted.

However, not all is lost with indigenous wild fruits as they can still be salvaged. According to research in the African Journal of Crop Science titled, ‘Potential of traditional food plants in rural household food security in Botswana,’ indigenous food plants have received significant attention in matters related to climate change mitigation through carbon sequestration.

Domestication of indigenous food plants, the research said, could be used as a strategy to improve food security and cash income for people living in rural areas as well as mitigating climate change.
Several indigenous fruit tree species, it noted, had been selected for domestication in Botswana and other countries in southern and eastern Africa.

The research also highlighted that it is a common practice for farmers in Botswana, as a climate change adaptation and mitigation strategy, to leave indigenous fruit trees when they clear forests for arable crop farming.

The research noted that people have become aware of the importance of indigenous fruit tree planting in homesteads and backyard gardens in both urban and rural Botswana.

The planting of these trees, the research mentioned, can be used to capture and store atmospheric carbon and may also decrease pressure on indigenous forests and woodlands which are the largest sinks for terrestrial carbon.

In addition, the Useful Plants Project (UPP), an offshoot of the Millennium Seed Bank (MSB) based at Kew Gardens in London has in the past collected and propagated plants from Botswana.

Working with local communities and the Botswana College of Agriculture, the project trained them to successfully store and propagate seeds, in an effort to improve food security for vulnerable populations.
In 2009, Botswana’s first UPP community garden opened in Tsetseng, East of Kang with 18 tree species. Ends