BY NOKUTHABA DLAMINI
A Hwange-born entrepreneur says he is pushing for the planting of five million mango trees in Matabeleland North to empower communities and protect the environment.
Morris Mpala, MOB Capital director, said the programme will target mainly Hwange and Binga districts where he says mango trees are under serious threat due to climate change and mining activities.
Mpala said the campaign was influenced by his background growing up in Hwange where almost every household has a mango tree.
“I literally grew up in these areas and have seen the death of mango trees, wastage of mango fruits, air pollution rising, rotting mangoes and the over reliance on earning from coal mining as a business model for years leading to land degradation,” Mpala said.
“So, this is a very ambitious but achievable value chain approach that covers rural, peri-urban and urban and covers Kamativi, Hwange; Victoria Falls, Dete and Binga.
“We are saying let everyone, children, youth and women business, government ministries, churches, non-profit organisations and chiefs take up the challenge as we try to address the above challenges.”
Mpala said the idea is to start by growing 10 mango trees per home before moving to open spaces, mini orchards and finally commercial plantations.
“We will offer training and in some instances seedlings, funding across the value chain,”
“Mango is the new economy as we transition into a green economy and proceeds from the big mango value chain will springboard new business ideas to grow the economy for these local communities.
“So, we will encourage individual ownerships, then family based partnerships , cooperatives, community based ownership and private ownership towards our out growers programme.”