Sarah Venter
Founder of EcoProducts
E
coProducts is a company
based in Limpopo Province, South Africa. Since
2006, EcoProducts has led
the way in the development and
supply of baobab oil and baobab
powder to the manufacture and
retail sectors. The company has
developed expertise in wild harvesting protocols, rural community supply chains, track and trace systems
and baobab fruit processing technology. EcoProducts is one of the
first companies in the bio-trade sector in South Africa to gain organic
status and to comply with national
bio-prospecting legislation.
The EcoProducts vision is to make a
meaningful contribution to the livelihoods of rural people and to the
conservation of baobab trees.
EcoProducts buys baobab fruit from
rural communities. The fruit are
processed in our factory to extract
baobab powder and baobab oil.
The extracts are packaged and sold
to retail stores and sold in bulk to
local and international manufacturers of food and cosmetic products.
History
Baobab trees have fascinated me
since I was a child; I love their presence in the landscape and their unusual antiquity. One day in 2005,
while I was driving through northern Venda, I noticed that the baobabs that were growing in every
village and field were not being
harvested for fruit. I realized that if
the fruit could be used, they could
generate an income for the people
living in his area. I was so inspired
by this idea, I founded EcoProducts
in 2006. My vision was to create a
business that would use my
knowledge of sustainable forest
utilization and benefit rural Venda
people at the same time! Within a
few months I found myself working
with 20 women in a little village
called Madifha. Word spread fast
and by the following year I was
working with 400 women. Numbers grew and now over 1000
women receive and income from
harvesting baobab fruit.
Being a scientist with a strong ethic
in conservation and sustainable utilization, I felt strongly that in order
to continue with this work I would
need to make absolutely sure that
harvesting baobab fruit was sustainable. Without stopping my
work in Venda, I completed a PhD
in the Ecology of baobabs in relation to sustainable utilization at the
University of the Witwatersrand. Although EcoProducts is my
main focus, I still continue my scientific work on baobabs. I have
published 5 papers in international
peer reviewed journals on the subject of baobabs. My research sites
in Venda continue to be monitored
and I am involved in long-term baobab data collection at other
sites. In addition, I also supervise a
number of post-graduate students
Through the millenia, the baobab
tree (Adansonia digitata) has been
the aristocrats of the African savannah and a source of shelter, food
and water to animals, insects and
humans alike.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Baobab_and_elephant_Tanzania_-_modified.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Baob
ab_-_fruit_(8750413322).jpg