Karongi: Maracuja fruit farmers find a solution to post-harvest losses through juice making

By Elias Hakizimana.

When farmers of COPEDUSHE cooperative started growing maragcuja fruits in Karongi district, Western Province in 2007, they expected an income to improve on their welfare but failed to quench the objective due to post harvest losses.

They later in 2007 established a factory to add value to the yield, producing juice from maracuja fruits.

Isaac Nkundunkundiye, production specialist of the cooperative that produces maracuja juice in Karongi district in western province narrates the journey of maracuja farming he experienced with his colleague when they started growing them in 2007.

They could lose a big part of the yield due to lack of markets and later got an idea to add value to the yield to avoid post-harvest losses

“We started growing maracuja in a cooperative and harvested more but lacked clients, one kilogramme was Rwf50 but a big part of the yield used to be rotten. We decided to look for a solution for that and established a juice processing factory in 2009. We also increased members from 10 to 17 and our factory has the capacity to receive 1 tonne of maracuja per day and we are ready to satisfy the markets,” Nkundunkundiye told The Inspirer during the ongoing Agrishow at Mulindi, Gasabo District of Kigali City-Rwanda.

He said that they taught farmers in their location on the best practices in improving the quantity and quality of produce and give them the seedlings to plant in their farms to be able to supply the yields to the factory and get money.

The factory produces two kinds of juice with one name “Shisha Wumva’, a concentrated one that is used after diluting [owatertre] with four litters of water, and another one that is used without diluting.

He said that their juice is made of maracuja only without any other ingredient and chemical.

He added that they target to produce cooking oil from maracuja in coming years.

“One of the challenges we use to experience is lack of enough produce during sunny climate because we do not harvest enough maracuja fruits during that period,” he said.

theinspirerpublications@gmail.com