Breadfruit: the Backyard to Our Plates

Brought into the country in 1796 by the French in order to develop it as a staple food for its colonies in the Caribbean, it took 216 years to wait before the fruit tree that the Mauritian authorities decide to give it the status it deserves in the list of solutions to help achieve food self-sufficiency or at least partially across the country to ensure a certain level of food security.

This recognition took the form of developing a comprehensive program of creating villages both in Mauritius and Rodrigues to promote the culture of fruit tree. The start of this program was given Tuesday, April 24, 2012 in the place where 216 years ago, the culture of tree bread was launched namely, the Garden of Pamplemousses, the work of the botanist Pierre Poivre .

Front of a crowd made up of schoolchildren, college students, representatives of NGOs, villagers of Northern, Satish Faugoo swapped his status as the Minister of Agro Industry and Food Security to take his barrister's gown the advocacy of the government's strategy to promote the culture of fruit tree.

In simple language, he in turn reported the nutritional values ??of breadfruit, its status as a potential substitute to rice, wheat flour, the potato, its export potential, its medicinal including the absence of gluten, which is essential in a country where 30% of the population suffers from diabetes, its importance in the context of food security in Mauritius, its export potential, its ability to give value added to many existing activities such as the revaluation of marginal land and some 12 000 hectares of abandoned land by smallholders after the fall of sugar prices in the European market.

Realistic, Satish Faugoo requested a minimum of assistance: " Remember the history of clove in Zanzibar. It began with the incentive given to each family to put in the ground plan of cloves. Today, Zanzibar became the leading producer of cloves. Do the same. "

The government has put the package to ensure the success of this agenda. All available resources have been put to use: the competence of many services including the Department of the Agricultural Research Extension Unit (AREU) in research, experience already in the field of culture, export and processing of breadfruit, the design of revenue from the breadfruit, the launch of a competition inviting all to share their knowledge on the use of gourmet bread fruit, the establishment of a service to help the population since the planting of fruit tree to marketing the project on local and foreign markets, the launch of three days of activity at the center of AREU at Wooton, Curepipe, as part of promoting the culture of fruit tree.

If there is a man to whom the government's commitment in terms of promoting the virtues of breadfruit was extremely pleased, it is neither more nor less than Daneshwar Surjua. He was a pioneer if not the first to believe in the potential of breadfruit and exploit them for commercial purposes. Today, the export of breadfruit to England and France and he buys from local agents, the transformation of flesh into flour available in the local market is an integral part of the panoply of its many activities in the field of agribusiness.

" Why not consider installing an industry making flour breadfruit. I've been doing for the past twenty years. If one is able to produce some 400,000 tons of sugar why can not we produce 100,000 tons of flour breadfruit . "

And for good reason, with flour breadfruit, we can do a lot of revenue. " I have a lot , "says Jacqueline Dalais, director of 'La Clef des Champs'. His favorite: a cappuccino made ??from breadfruit.