The increasing global demand for marula oil and other seed oils brings enormous potential to local producers in southern African countries. Swazi Indigenous Products (SIP) is a community-owned company that strives to empower rural women in the fight against poverty, generate income sustainably and create high quality natural products using traditional indigenous knowledge. SIP is an accredited Fair Trade Organization and operates in line with the highest standards of Fair Trade. The company operates from a small factory in Mpaka, in the heart of the Swazi lowveld, producing a range of natural cosmetics products using marula oil and other natural plant-based ingredients.

Income Generation
Around 2,000 rural Swazi women generate much-needed income by selling marula nuts at fair trade prices. Many of the harvesters live in extremely poor, drought-stricken areas and have previously relied on UN Food Aid to survive. Through their sales of marula seeds, the women now earn the money needed to buy basic food and clothing, access medical care and pay school fees. With production set to increase, thanks to an increase in consumer demand, local women will be able to improve their situations even more.

Quality Control
SIP staff travel into the rural communities to buy the kernels, weighing and grading them at source to ensure high quality raw material. The kernels are then brought to the factory at Mpaka where they are manually cold pressed to produce pure, natural marula oil. The oil is then tested in the laboratory to ensure that only top quality is produced. SIP then exports the oil to cosmetics companies or uses it in the company’s own skin care oils and natural cosmetics.

Added Value
Instead of just simply exporting the oil as a commodity product to cosmetics companies in the developed world, SIP adds value locally with its own range of pure, simple and natural cosmetics, including lip balms, shower gels and hand lotions. In addition, SIP has gained organic certification for its marula oil, becoming the first Swazi organisation to achieve this.

Environmental Sustainability
Swaziland retains a wonderful biodiversity of indigenous plants and trees and as elsewhere in the world, that biodiversity is under threat. SIP works in harmony with its surroundings and is completely environmentally sustainable. Marula fruit is left to fall when ripe and just 5000 of the two million marula trees in Swaziland are used to meet current requirements. In addition, the company is working with suppliers on community planting of a range of indigenous trees.

Grassroots Action
In response to these problems, the people of the valley set up a cooperative, the Corporación Talleres del Gran Valle (CTGV) in 1998, to defend and protect their communities through Fair Trade and sustainable development practices. The organisation aims to create sustainable economic activities so that people don’t have to work for the mines or move away to find employment. Several micro-enterprises have been established and profits go into a shared community fund that benefits everyone in the valley. The shared fund provides micro-credit loans, pays a nurse’s salary and provides an ambulance service among other things.

Project Loofah
CTGV’s oldest and most established venture is the natural loofah project, which is based in the community of San Jose de Magdalena. Twelve local farmers and their families grow loofah plant vines which thrive in the valley’s sub-tropical climate. The plants are cultivated for the fruit’s tough fibrous interior, highly prized for its skin-exfoliating properties. After peeling, washing and drying the harvested loofahs, the farmers bring them to the loofah workshop, where the loofah is cut and stitched to create all kinds of useful, commercial products – from bath sponges and back scrubs to comfy slippers, mats and household accessories. Other local raw materials such as raw cotton, forest seeds and banana fibre are used in production as well. The finished products are then sold in the local market and marketed through national and international fair trade channels.

Loofah Products for sale
On our visit to Ecuador last year, one of our major priorities was to visit the fair trade loofah project and the communities of Manduriacos valley. Sadly, the only access road was closed off at the time, due to flooding (the valley does have a seven-month rainy season after all!). We managed to source some of their wonderful loofah products through Camari (a WFTO Fair Trade organisation), of which CTGV is a member. Currently available in our online shop are natural loofah bath mitts, sponges and foot scrubs.

On the east coast of Madagascar, near Manakara, a small rural community is involved in the production of niaouli oil. The people of this community find it extremely difficult to make a living from farming and most barely survive on less than a dollar a day. To make matters worse, the area is subject to cyclones, tropical storms and flooding with often devastating consequences for the inhabitants. So opportunities to generate income from other sources are vital. The locals use the profits from the sale of niaouli oil to buy basic necessities such as rice, kerosene, soap and schoolbooks. The community works in partnership with La Maison Afrique, a Swedish Fair Trade Organisation, which gives economic support through advance payments and interest free loans and strives to place regular orders so that the community can plan ahead.

The local pastor, Martin Rakotosaminanana, organises the rural population so that the leaves from the wild growing niaouli trees are collected and distilled. When orders for niaouli oil are received, about 30 local people are employed three days a week to collect the leaves and distil the oil. Before starting work, the community collaborates with the local branch office of the Ministry for Water and Forests. To ensure environmental sustainability of plant resources, the ministry controls the harvesting of vegetal materials and needs to give their approval before any leaves are collected. This ensures that the trees are not over-exploited, thus ensuring that the resource is available for future generations.

When enough leaves are gathered, they are brought to a small production plant, where the oil is extracted through steam distillation. About 4-5 kg of pure essential oil is produced after about 6 hours. The oil is collected and samples are taken to the laboratory at the IMRA (Insitut Malgache de Recherches Appliquees), a centre for biodiversity conservation and scientific research. The oil is tested and analysed for quality assurance and to ensure that the oil meets international export standards.