03 Mar 2014

The sale of seedlings has changed some people’s lives.

In an interview at the just ended  poverty eradication workshop in Jamataka, Ms Badirang Majaga, a 58-year-old widow of Rakops in the Boteti Sub-district explained that she sustains her five children by planting fruit and vegetable trees for sale.

Ms Majaga was trained by the forestry department on how to earn a living through planting and selling trees. She enrolled on the programme in 2013. She sells seedlings of mango, guava, and orange, among others.

She also sells monepenepe and moringa seedlings. Ms Majaga explained that monepenepe and moringa are traditional medicinal trees and their stems, roots or leaves extracts are good for body pains, which extracts are obtained by boiling with water.

She said business had its ups and downs, but the Poverty Eradication Programme developed her into a tough entrepreneur, who can stand all difficulties. “In a day I earn something like P200 to P300,” she noted.

Ms Majaga said she faced challenges such as lack of transport to move from one village to another and asked the government to buy her a donkey cart. She sometimes uses a crate to pack her plants and catch a bus to sell at Motlopi and Kumaga.

She said shortage of water was a challenge because she sourced water from a public stand pipes to water her plants while she awaits pipes to be connected from a Jojo tank to the nursery. She complained that her hose pipe that had been affected by the sun and broke easily.

Another beneficiary, Ms Matshwenyego Tumba of Makuta also said she enrolled in the poverty eradication programme last year and also experienced the same challenges of shortage of water as well as pesticides.

Ms Tumba said business was doing well. She deals in Tjingame tree, an indoor plant for decoration, which is also known for emitting a lot of oxygen to keep the air in the house healthy. She said the market was small, as such she earns P600 per month. ENDS