Harvesting a Better Tomorrow

Gulshat cannot have it better. In a matter of few months, she is expecting to earn more money, have greater control over her natural and financial resources, a relatively less laborious summer and abundance of preserved fruit and vegetables for her family to survive the harshest of winters in Chinar – a rugged village cradled by towering peaks of the majestic Hindu Kush mountains in Pakistan’s northwestern Chitral district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, bordering Afghanistan.

36-year-old Gulshat, mother of three, is among thousands of women in the far-flung, underserved mountain valleys of northern Pakistan, who have only seen struggle against natural and economic odds all their lives. Their economic mainstay is an assortment of best quality apricots, apples, mulberry, peaches, walnuts, and grapes that abound these valleys, but their abundance does not yield financial dividends for the communities. According to villagers, 80 percent of the yield goes to waste in the absence of any fruit processing, preservation, or storage infrastructure.

In the summers, they sell fresh fruit to middlemen at a paltry price. The ones that do not perish are sundried for use in snowy winters with temperatures falling below 15 degrees Celsius, though some dried fruits are also sold to raise cash. Women spend excruciatingly long hours during summers to sun-dry these fruits and spend even longer in cracking nuts using traditional methods, which compromises their quality and does not cater to the sheer volume of fruit available for preservation and selling in the market.

Gulshat along with 132 other women across four villages have now access to solar dehydrators and electric-run nutcrackers, which multiples their capacity to dry fruits and crack nuts. Qurumbar and Shandur Area Development Organization (QASADO), a local organization that is supported by USAID Ambassador’s Fund Grant Program, have provided up to 30 locally fabricated machines to these communities.

The project aimed at social and economic uplift of communities in an area that is accessible only by a four-hour jeep drive on a dirty road. These underprivileged villages face depleted supplies and food price escalations during extreme winters that last over six months during the year.

“We previously used to sundry our fruits and could barely meet our own nutritional needs during winters,” says Gulshat who would earlier wait for up to 15 days for a single tray of any fruit to dry. “The longer exposure to sunlight changes the taste and shape of fruit, rendering them unmarketable.”

This has all changed for Gulshat and her counterparts. “We can now dehydrate up to 100 kilograms of fruits or vegetables in just three to four days,” she exclaimed, quickly adding the advantages of the nutcracker that has saved them three to four hours required for the labour to crack one kilogram of nuts. “We can now crack 40 kilograms of nuts in just 20 minutes.”

The women are now using these technological interventions for the economic uplift of their communities. These women formed business groups, helping them operate their bank accounts for greater control over the resources they will generate through dried fruit and nut sales and develop connections with urban markets in an effort to maximize profits.

“I just cannot wait to see our packets of dried fruits and nuts being sold in the markets of major cities,” says Gulshat, who has now been elected as manager of her village’s Women Business Group and plans to expand the benefits of QASADO project to more women.