Production and Marketing of Eru

Eru is a wild vegetable that is harvested from the forest. It is valued for its taste, nutritional and socio-economic value, protein and the 8 essential amino acids it contains. It is now seriously threatened by habitat loss and poor methods of harvesting such as uprooting. There are two main species that are traded. The business shall market dry eru leaves of both species and propagate and market seedlings of Gnetum buchholzianum.

Scarcity of eru seedlings hinders the establishment of eru farms. Many consumers do not have access to good quality eru because it is perishable and deteriorates during handling and transportation.

Leaves are selected from vines, cleaned with water, tied into small bundles and shredded manually with knives. Drying is done with an electric dryer so green color is maintained. The dry product is weighed and packaged in plastic sachets.

Eru seedlings are produced from eru vine cuttings. Cuttings are inserted in rooting propagators where they develop roots and are transferred to weaning propagators. They are then hardened for field planting.

The products shall be introduced through trade fairs, agricultural shows, man to man contacts, radio and TV publicity and the placement in supermarkets and general provision stores. Demonstration farms shall be used to sensitize farmers. We shall use companies specialized in finished product distribution to reach our customers. We shall make use of the services of airline services like to deliver our produce to customers abroad.

Eru seedlings shall be sold to at least 500 farmers who have vast and exploitable land. They require seedlings to meet their aspirations of scaling up their production. We shall also sell to projects that are requesting seedlings for distribution to farmers.

Dry eru shall be sold to Africans in the Diaspora as well as to consumers far from the eru source areas. We shall also exploit the emerging organic product market in the US.

Our competitors sell eru in various forms: some freeze and ship to the UK while others use solar energy to dry their product resulting in product of lower quality. Those in Nigeria rely on supply from Cameroon and so pay higher prices for raw materials.

Limbe Botanic Garden is our main competitor on eru seedling production. They produce only on command. A group we trained is involved in commercialization but use our network.

We are strategically located and well known. Our product has a green color cherished by consumers. We are linked to a thermal power plant and have regular supply of electricity so we can process all year round.

Harvesters sell eru raw and so deprive Cameroonians of jobs (shredding, packaging). We will initiate a benefit sharing mechanism that ensures benefits from eru trade are felt by all the social strata and not just those who have the strength to go to the forest. Our business has a dual purpose of promoting conservation of the resource and improving livelihoods. It promotes crop diversification and as such reduces the risks of crop failure

We shall propagate large quantities of seedlings in order to lift total supply on the market beyond the traditional level towards an export oriented agricultural product. This will ensure that we have regular supply of raw materials. Results of our domestication work shall be used to lobby for the declassification of eru from a forest product into an agricultural crop. This will reduce taxes and ensure higher profits for the company.

Entrepreneur has an agricultural background with an 18-year experience. During his professional career he has initiated many small business ventures that now offer employment to many youths. He coordinated the training of many small scale farmers on eru domestication. His extension work resulted in creation of CENDEP and this initiative. He is familiar with the process haven practiced it himself. The new manager will exploit his experience.

We have been training farmers since 2000. This means we have been practicing this technology since 2000. We have already done trial processing and export and now know fairly well how to do international trade. Through email we successfully identified a customer, entered into a contract and delivered our product. We thus have production and marketing knowledge and are best placed to manage this business or train those to manage it.

I will train some one to manage the business so I will work 2 days a week. Other staff will also work at least one day per week to ensure smooth transfer of management of the business to our recruit.

It will employ permanent and temporal workers. At least 500 farmers shall be able to make extra income from the sales of eru 3 to 10 years later.

The business will increase resilience among small scale farmers under changing climatic conditions and increase the carbon sequestration capacity of their small farms by promoting agroforestry practices and activities (planting of trees to act as shade/support for eru).