This project plan reports on the establishment of a Moringa powder business at the Kumasi Institute of Tropical Agriculture in Ghana.
The area this project plan concerns is the Ashanti-region, more specific the Ejisu Juaben district. Malnutrition is a big problem in this area, just like in the rest of Ghana. This is not only due to the lack of resources to purchase healthy nutrients, but also because of the lack of knowledge about the importance of a well balanced diet.
‘Mor Nutro’ is a powder produced from the leaves of the Moringa tree. Because of its high nutritional value, it is a product that can be used in order to decrease the amount of malnutrition cases. Last year, Melanie Schuurman and Bart Gijsberts have continued the project that Tim van Teeffelen started the year before. This year Nienke Zweers and Nena Roes will travel to Ghana in order to pick up the project where the TU Delft students of last year have ended.
In order to establish a sustainable Moringa farm at the campus of KITA, the project can be divided into two parts: the educational part and the trade part. These different components of the projects each have their own objectives that need to be reached.
The educational part of the project consists of the education about the importance of a well balanced diet, vitamins, proteins, minerals, and the way Mor Nutro Powder can contribute to this. The target group of these educational moments are private schools that feed their own students, care centres and nursing mothers.
Besides these informative sessions, also 180 farmers will be trained in the cultivation of Moringa and the marketing around Mor Nutro Powder. The students will participate in these trainings and evaluate the training programme afterwards.
The trade part of the project consists of the design and creation of a walk-in solar dryer and a milling and packaging centre at the campus of KITA. Both will contribute to the optimization of the production process. This is a very important aspect, because at the moment the capacity at KITA isn’t sufficient. Because of the fact that without a well functioning production area at KITA the possible question for Mor Nutro powder that can be created by education can’t be answered, the trade part will be the main objective of the project to be fulfilled.
A big part of the project is to create legitimacy. At the moment Moringa is not accepted as a medication to prevent or cure malnutrition. By the establishment of a Moringa farm at KITA, we want to inspire other institutes in Ghana in order to make Moringa widely available in Ghana.