The humble Samoan breadfruit could save millions of starving Africans

 

By Tupuola Terry Tavita

Samoa’s Ma’afala and Ulu Fiti breadfruit could save millions of starving Africans years to come.

Reports from Ghana is that the two varieties of breadfruit – native to Samoa – was introduced last year to the capital Accra September last year in a cooperation between the Ghana Alliance against Hunger and Malnutrition (HAG) and America’s Breadfruit Institute.

A thousand 300mm breadfruit trees were delivered from a mass propagation facility outside of Frankfurt, Germany.

Said Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi;

“That is good. That is our contribution to saving the hungry in Africa.”

Ghana, the report said, has had a breadfruit culture since two varieties of Tahitian breadfruit were introduced there by missionaries in the 1840s.

“But the existing Ghanaian breadfruit variety produces perhaps 250 or 300 kg per year and has a single main season.

“The Ma’afala and Ulu Fiti varieties of Samoa in the Pacific Islands, however, produce 500 kg of fruit per tree per year and have complementary fruiting patterns resulting in shorter hungry months.”

“This is the first new variety breadfruit to reach West African shores since the 1840s when missionaries brought at least two East Polynesian varieties to West Africa from the Caribbean some few decades after Captain Bligh and other voyages that brought them from East Polynesia to the Caribbean.”

Some 60 varieties of breadfruit grow in Samoa, scientific field studies indicate. It is the most diverse breadfruit center in the world.

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