Trade in vegetables booming

| Friday May 15, 2009 00:00

FRANCISTOWN: It is harvest time in Botswana and people at masimo (farmalands) are reaping the fruit of their sweat.

In Francistown and other urban centres, vegetable farmers are laughing all the way to the bank as demand for their produce is at an all time peak.

A vegetable producer who declined to give his surname, saying he was only Alex, told Business Week that demand for his produce is threatening to overwhelm him.

'I sell to both individuals and companies and I do not have a day of rest,' says Alex, whose wholesale business goes by the name of Francistown Fresh Produce.'Everyday there is someone knocking at the door. But I am unable to sell to retail outlets at the moment - the likes of Spar, Choppies and Shoprite - because they would want to buy in huge quantities.

'I wonder how I could be of help to them because right now I am also supplying schools in Francistown like Mmei Junior Secondary School and Mater Spei College, as well as Nyangabgwe Referral Hospital and the Botswana Defence Force (BDF).'

Alex says he gets most of his supplies from South Africa because other than cabbage and butternuts, there is a scarcity of fresh produce in Botswana.

'In South Africa, there is wide variety. Thankfully, we have no problem getting permits from the city council here whenever we want to buy produce from South Africa,' he says.

Another vegetable merchant, this time in Selebi Phikwe, Anand Dadala, also sources most of his supplies from South Africa, except for butternuts and cabbages, which he obtains from Maunatlala where there is a father-and-son horticulture business.Dadala, who runs Meloney Cash and Carry Fresh Produce in Area General near BCL quarters in the copper-nickel town, says the trouble is that everyone is now into selling vegetables, making it difficult for him to make enough to pay his workers sufficiently.

'It is a hand-to-mouth existence for us,' he says matter-of-factly. 'But one could be making a handsome profit if everyone was not into selling fruit and vegetables.'

One should be forgiven for regarding the knot of women at the entrance to Choppies Supermarket in Francistown's Main Mall to be a nuisance because they pester passing shoppers with plastic bags filled with grated greens.

But one of them says they are making a roaring business and they consider themselves to be of great value to shoppers who resort to them after failing to get what they wanted 'inside'.

'I am able to sell up to 10 kilogrammes of vegetables in a single day, especially at month-end,' says buxom Selinah Ndlovu who has just parted with a bag of green pepper for the benefit of one such customer.

She says in the past, she sold only airtime; she diversified into greens when she saw that her fellow vendors were making a killing.'There is a lot of money in vegetables,' Ndlovu says. 'People buy our produce big time. When business is very good, it is easy to return home without one root or leaf of cabbage.Another vegetable vendor, this time at the bus rank opposite the waiting room, says this is her fifth year selling fresh produce.Thirty-five year-old Kelebogile Machosa of Tonota says while she has had ups and downs through the years, this year promises to be a 'bumper' one for her.

'There is a good demand for vegetables,' she says. 'I have been bringing fresh vegetables every morning and I'll have made a good profit by the end of the year.

The vendors say they source their produce from a farmer in Francistown North. Business Week, however, could not locate the farmer, but there is no doubt that business is booming for him..Says Machosa: 'It is just that these days there are so many of us. This business should be regulated so that some people can trade in goods other than just vegetables.'