Postcard from Tanzania: sesame oil body gel enriching villagers

31 July 2013

Photo: Erri villagers display their sesame oil body gel

By Goodness Mrema, Farm Africa’s Communications Officer in Tanzania

I recently went on a field visit to Uganda's Mbugwe division where I discovered how Farm Africa training, along with the creativity and innovation of sesame farmers themselves, is adding value to their sesame crops.

The village of Erri is one of 23 villages in Mbugwe taking part in Farm Africa’s sesame marketing project. Forty sesame farmers in the village are benefitting from the project, which encourages them to find ways of adding value to their sesame harvest by turning it into products such as sweets and extract oil, which sells for more than raw sesame alone.

An enriching and moisturising body gel

One particular group member, after a recent Farm Africa training session in Erri, come up with the novel idea of producing a skin enriching and moisturising body gel made from sesame oil. The other farmers in the group agreed this was an great idea, and set about organizing a collective body gel making session - getting together all the necessary materials including firewood, a cooking pot, a match box, candles and sesame oil.

The session succeeded in producing a rich body gel, much to the delight of the young and old villagers alike.

Photo: sesame oil body gel packaged for sale

“We are glad for our innovation because this will be a successful project and it will help us use more of our sesame rather than selling it as a raw material. I believe that the whole community will benefit from this directly” said one of the farmers.

And having mastered producing body lotion, the farmers are now planning to have a go at producing bars of soap from sesame oil. I am confident this will prove just as successful.

More about our sesame marketing project

More about our work in Tanzania