My Story: Khelina Hluphekile Magagula, Organic marula kernel producer

My name is Khelina and I am 49 years old. I live in the Hlane area of Swaziland. I got divorced nine years ago and I have seven children. My two sons work in South Africa, two girls are married and I live with three of my children. I also stay with two grandchildren that I look after. I am also a traditional dancer and I always got with other women to dance at the King’s palace when there are special ceremonies such as the celebration of the King’s birthday. I started working with Swazi Indigenous Products (SIP) in 2005 as a supplier of marula kernels. Following the training that I received from SIP, I am now a supplier of organic marula kernels and I am very happy about this because organic kernels give me more income. I use the income from Marula kernels ‘iyasiwondla lokusisiza kakhulu’ (income takes care of us and helps us in many ways) to buy maize-meal, laundry soap, sugar, salt and pay school fees for my grandchildren. I also use the money to buy airtime for my mobile phone that I got from my son who works in South Africa. I also use the money I get from selling kernels to buy flour for use in baking cakes for sale during the Marula off-season.

Before selling Marula kernels, I used to make and sell mats for between E50-80 (US$8-11) per mat and I would make a maximum of six mats per month. I stopped making mats because of time constraints after I started cracking kernels. The mats were also time consuming as I had to go to collect reeds far from my village and I would spend a week in that area, leaving the children alone. Now I spend most of my time at home with my family as I crack the kernels from home. I also used to grow cotton but I stopped because of poor rains. I realised that I was wasting my energy and inputs and later on get poor yields. I also grew maize for subsistence but when rains are not good, I get poor yields. For instance, this growing season there has been drought and I am not going to get any maize from my field. This year I plan to use most of my income from Marula kernels to buy food because of the drought.

I was the first woman in my village to sell Marula kernels. The first time I sold the kernels in 2005 I sold 20kg. I showed my money from the kernels to other village women and they were surprised and at the same time excited at the idea that they could generate income from Marula kernels. My friends in the village also developed an interest in cracking Marula kernels for sale. Since I started, I have been happy with the price I get for my kernels. I normally sell 20kg of kernels per month but today I sold 25kg of organic kernels.

I have benefited from being a member of SIP through training courses and workshops that I attended. I attended a training course on organic kernel production and I am now realising the benefits of this course as I am now an organic kernel producer and earn E27/kg (US$1.75/lb) instead of E25/kg (US$1.62/lb) for the conventional kernels. The training on organic kernel production that I received included identifying the right areas to collect Marula fruits such as in the bush where no chemicals have been used; if collecting from the field, these fields should have been lying fallow or having use of organic manure only during the last five years; after cracking the kernels, these should be dried on clean grass where there is no possibility for contamination; regarding storage, the kernels should be stored in properly covered containers that are labeled ‘organic kernels’ and not stored in a room that has been sprayed for malaria control in recent years. I also attended a course on sustainable harvesting of the Marula fruits and another course on the grading of the kernels, i.e. separating grade A from grade B kernels.

While I am divorced, I have noticed that the income from kernels has also empowered married women who are now able to make their own decisions as to how to use the money from Marula kernels. Before getting income from kernels, these married women depended entirely on their husbands and the men would make decisions on how to use money from livestock and crop sales during good agricultural years. There is also more ‘visible’ happiness in the homes of women involved in kernel production as the women do not ask for money for salt, soap, and sugar from their husbands but are instead contributing to household income. Women also decide what to do with that money as men like drinking a lot. When it is money from other economic activities like cropping it is the men who decide how to use the money.

Traditional leaders have also put in place rules that govern the use of the Marula trees. For instance, to ensure that the trees continue to bear fruits, women in the village at a given time brew Marula beer which is then taken to the relevant traditional leader in the area as some form of thanksgiving to the ancestral spirits. The Marula tree population seems to be increasing as there are new and younger trees growing and the existing old ones.