Pandemic makes African countries go surfing for groceries
06 June, 2020
Among her shifts, Zimbabwean nurse Sinothando Mpofu used to go to Bulawayo's open-air markets to get tomatoes and cabbages for her family of nine - before country's coronavirus lockdown closed all stalls.
Ms Mpofu concerned about where she would get fresh food, until she saw a note in her local church WhatsApp group about Fresh in a Box - one of rising numbers of African tech companies getting fresh food to persons under lockdown.
Now she puts in an order online and gets a box of produce sent to her home weekly. The fruits and vegetables are better quality compared to the food she used to get at the supermarket, she said, at in regards to a third of the cost.
"Buying vegetables at a local supermarket is very expensive, however now I get a variety of vegetables and I eat balanced meals continuously," Ms Mpofu, 37, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, saying she'll keep using the website even after lockdown ends.
In many African countries, measures devote location to slow the spread of Covid-19 have managed to get harder for people to access affordable, nutritious foods, sparking warnings from aid groups that the pandemic will worsen malnutrition rates.
Around 73 million persons in Africa are already acutely food insecure, noted Matshidiso Moeti, the World Health Organisation's Regional Director for Africa in a news release last month.
"Covid-19 is exacerbating food shortages, as food imports, transportation and agricultural production have all been hampered by a blend of lockdowns, travel restrictions and physical distancing measures," she said.
A possible global GDP loss of 5 per cent this year could push another 147 million persons into extreme poverty - over fifty percent of these in sub-Saharan Africa, in line with the DC-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
Click to eat
Mobile tech startups are helping persons obtain fresh food through the pandemic by experiencing the rapid rise in smartphone use across Africa.
About one-third of individuals in sub-Saharan Africa had usage of a smartphone in 2018, a lot more than double the quantity four years earlier, in line with the Pew Research Center, a Washington-based think tank.
Launched in October 2018 and selling surplus fruit and veggies from local farms, Fresh in a Box found itself scrambling to include more farmers to its roster to provide the sudden rush of clients, said co-founder Kudakwashe Musasiwa.
He added that it now distributes about 2.6 tonnes of vegetables daily from practically 2,000 small-scale farmers to customers' doorsteps.
"With Covid-19, something incredible happened. We'd to find a way of scaling up really quickly because all of a sudden our demand soared," Musasiwa said.
Like Zimbabwe's Fresh in a Box and the Market Garden iphone app in Uganda, which is connecting women produce vendors to a fresh wave of online customers, Namibia in addition has seen a growth in the popularity of online markets under lockdown.
A website called Tambula - meaning "take" in the neighborhood Oshiwambo language - is described as "an online mall" by its founder Jerobeam Mwedihanga, who launched the website about a week into Namibia's lockdown, which were only available in March.
"Rental fees in malls are saturated in Namibia," said Mr Mwedihanga, 36, an IT engineer, whose site gives electronics, beverages, furniture and more. "And there are many home-run businesses without place to showcase their products."
Last month, Tambula partnered with the UN Development Programme on a pilot project to market informal market goods online, including local foods like dried spinach, mopane worms and ground nuts.
"For many consumers, this is their first-time buying traditional foods online," said Mr Mwedihanga, adding that products from informal vendors have become to make up 35 % of online sales.
One positive to emerge from the brand new coronavirus pandemic, he said, is that people are becoming more alert to e-commerce and realising that food from informal traders can often be less expensive than that from retail shops.
In Nigeria, entrepreneur Luther Lawoyin realised that bulk purchases could save consumers from overspending on food.
He launched PricePally - described as an electronic food cooperative - in November 2019, as a means of letting persons buy food online in bulk from farmers and wholesalers and split the price with other site users.
"When the coronavirus (outbreak) really was picking right up in Nigeria, we noticed a spike in our traffic and sales, so we figured that persons need help to get their food items and, especially, in order to avoid the marketplace," said Mr Lawoyin.
The site's customers save at least 15 per cent on the meals they buy, he added.
PricePally had about 320 paying users prior to the virus hit - that number raised to a lot more than 1,000 following the country's lockdown kicked in on March 30, Mr Lawoyin said.
Food Remittances
Just as lockdowns all over the world have disrupted food trade across borders, they also have made it difficult for folks working abroad to send food to their loved ones back home.
Zimbabweans moving into South Africa who would normally pay bus and taxi drivers to carry food packages with their families have considered an iphone app called Malaicha.
The app, which were only available in South Africa nearly twelve months ago, acts such as a version of food remittances, allowing people in South Africa to order groceries for delivery in Zimbabwe.
While 70 % of products are sourced locally in Zimbabwe at cheaper rates, about 30 per centb result from South Africa where Malaicha has permission to import goods.
Nokusa Nyathi, 24, stood in a snaking queue as high as 200 persons at the Malaicha pick-up point in Bulawayo, waiting to achieve the parcel of goods that her father in South Africa had ordered online - essentials like cooking oil, sugar, spaghetti and soap.
Through Malaicha, her father will get groceries to his family in just a few days, weighed against the weeks or months it can take to send the meals from South Africa to Zimbabwe, Nyathi said.
Using the service is also cheaper than if her father simply sent money for his family to get the food themselves, she explained.
"Coronavirus pushed us in the proper direction," said De Beer, who believes the app's steep surge in users can last long after the pandemic.
The company is so confident about the continuing future of online food shopping in Africa that it's launching Malaicha Global in a few days, said De Beer, to ensure that persons can send goods to Zimbabwe from anywhere in the world.
"The need is simply too big to die down," she said.
Source: www.thenational.ae
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