One of the childhood adventures I’ve had was the freedom of moving about in the forests and shrubs in any environments I found myself at any point in time. In one of those childhood memories, moving about in the bushes or shrubs around the current Ecobank and Melcom branches at Kissehman at Christian Village Junction in 1990 was one of the most fascination childhood memories I’ve had. The place was a farm and a quiet place.
In one of those aimless childhood adventures, one of my childhood pals, I can’t remember, picked a fallen fruit and gave me a peel of the fruit that had a golden pulp. I wasn’t so much enthused about the taste but I was captivated by the tree from which that fruit came from. As a child the tree looked like a palm to me whilst the fruit looked like a ripe golden coconut. It was strange as that was the first time I’d seen such a fruit. The picture of the tree and its fruits stayed on my memory ever since but nothing caused me to ever go there to observe it further.
I never came across that tree until 15 years later when I saw many of such trees with their gold like fruits sparkling on them on my “to and ‘fro’” journeys from Accra to Tamale and Salaga, during my National Service at St Charles Secondary School in Tamale and volunteer work in Salaga Secondary, all of them now Senior High Schools. On the STC Buses on those journeys, between Techiman and Kintampo, you would see those palm- like trees with their golden fruits on them, seeming valueless. In the bus my soul had always yearned to know why those numerous palm-like trees with their numerous golden fruits seemed valueless and nothing came out of them to the market.
Many years after that fate brought me to the Volta Region in 2023 and had to settle in the Ketu South Municipality for work. Notwithstanding the fact that I’m a Dangme of the Greater Accra Region and Ewe from the Volta Region, but was born in the Eastern Region in Ayensuano, somehow out of prejudice, vindictiveness and not fitting into the deviousness of an aberrant Director I worked under, there was a grand scheme with the politician to axe me out of the Eastern, which got me to be posted to the Volta Region; that I should go to my people. In a book soon to be published details will be made available.
Lo and behold, plying the Aflao to Ho road on official assignments brought out the dying curiosity of the palm-like tree that bear the golden fruit. On my way to Ho, right in Agortime-Ziope, I saw a few of the palm-like trees and their fruits hanging on them. I was exhilarated and developed a strong urge to investigate something about the palm- like fruit. I had already known the Ewe name of the fruit from my first encounter with it and never forgot it since the 1990s. “Agor” is the Ewe name of the fruit. The name resonates with the name of the town Agortime. Agortime crudely means agor forest. So, what’s the English name for agor? To get the answer I contacted an officer from the
Department of Agriculture at the Ketu South Municipal Assembly, Wisdom Asase, an Agricultural Officer, who provided the answer. The palm-like tree I have talked about all this while is the Palmyra Palm. The scientific name also is Borassus Flabellifer. So that means Agortime Ziope, particularly Agortime, got its name from the local name of the palmyra palm; agor.
My search on the internet shows that it’s a tropical tree that grows in hot tropical environments. It has tough fibre containing sweet golden pulp. It usually has three seeds in a normal size fruit. The fruit has tough fibre skin which contain the edible thick golden pulp. The seeds at their younger stage of development have soft white flesh that is used widely in India desserts and ‘milk-shakes’. The golden pulp is extracted from the tough fibre, usually by hand. But I have not seen anything the pulp is used for as at the time of this article.
Further checks show there are some plantations of the palmyra palm in India, where the fruits of the palmyra palm are put to some use.
The question is why is the golden pulp not used for drinks? That is what I sort to investigate that gave birth to this article.
Seeing those golden fruits on the palmyra palms in Agortime on my official assignments to Ho, I contacted Richard Mawusi an Assistant Human Resource Manager at Agortime Ziope District Assembly if he could help me get someone to get me some of those golden fruits from the palmyra palm. He quickly made that arrangements. It took me some few weeks to prepare to meet a gentleman he introduced to me to help. The photos below show the gentleman helping with the harvest of some palmyra fruits in Agortime with the scythe knife and bamboo stick. I only had to show small appreciation to the gentleman for that help.
Palmyra Palm with matured fruits being harvested
Harvesting the palmyra palm fruits with scythe knife and bamboo stick
Palmyra fruits which have undergone over two weeks of repining.
The ripe fruits on the palmyra palm trees look golden but still very tough to use unless they’re kept for two weeks or more to soften after harvesting. The completely ripe fruit could fall from the palmyra palm tree on its own but you’re not likely to get even a fruit falling each day, because the branches on which the fruits are hooked to are very tough. So, the best option if you need a certain quantity is to harvest them and keep them to ripe and soften for about 14 days or more. At least that was the advice I was given by the experienced gentleman who harvested the fruits for me.
The photos above show the ripe fruits that had been kept for over two weeks after harvest to soften. After softening they look golden brown.
The whole project was to try to produce some juice from the fruits. I peeled the thin golden-brown layer from the fruit to reach the tough fiber containing the golden pulp. That thin layer has some slight bitter taste. Squeezing the pulp out of the fruit was so difficult. I tried using a machine I have but it only got some small portion of the pulp out, using water to flash out the juice. Because the fibre is tough, the water and the blender couldn’t extract much of the pulp. I had to spend some few minutes to watch how an
Indian woman used her hand to squeeze the golden pulp from the fruit to apply that skill. Since the fruit has three seeds the size of a potato, you need to pick each seed and squeeze the golden pulp out of the tough fibre. The golden pulp look jelly, therefore you always have to be pouring some water on the seed whilst squeezing the golden pulp out of the fibre. Just enough water to get the jelly like pulp from your hand and on the seed, so you can attempt to squeeze out the rest of the golden pulp again. I first picked only five fruits from the ripe golden-brown fruits. That gave me about 15 seeds with the fibre and pulp.
This is one seed containing the fibre and the golden pulp
These are two seeds being separated out. One seed had already been taken out.
You will need a heavy machete to crack open the fruit. The fibre is so though to easily crack it open with a knife. Some people try to eat the pulp from the fibre but that’s not an easy task if you want to eat it for enjoyment as the fibre is just too tough to be handled in the mouth. You would have to patiently do that.
After managing to squeeze the pulp from the seeds what is left of the seeds are what you see in the photos above.
The first step to producing the juice has been completed. If you squeeze the pulp without adding water then it would be the time to add enough water to have the level of thickness you desire. If you squeeze the pulp with water then it’s necessary to be mindful of the quantity of water to be used. Unlike mango, where the extracted juice could be drank without any sweetener, you would need a sweetener to make the palmyra juice nicer. You could use date fruits, but you would need a lot of it. You could also use brown sugar
if you’re mindful of your health. Others may try honey. And for those who don’t have sugar problems; they could use white sugar to taste.
It’s necessary to strain the drink after adding the sweetener before filling it into bottles for refrigeration.
Indeed, one can see that the juice looks golden from the photos below.
Having sieved the juice, you can then fill it in plastic bottles of preferable sizes and freeze them for use. The golden colour of the drink above looks different from the colour of the bottled ones below because I grinded and added a combination of several local spices most of which look dark brown, affecting the golden colour of the bottled palmyra juice slightly.
Frozen bottled palmyra juice. The taste was excellent and truly refreshing
From the above revelation, it can be stated that the palmyra fruit is a very useful fruit and fruit juice can definitely be made from it to serve any market.
The seeds in the immature fruit could be used in deserts as mentioned earlier but that would mean losing the pulp that is supposed to come from it when the fruit gets matured. The seeds in the immature fruit are jelly like, sweet, soft and white, which are eaten raw or used in deserts. The seeds in the ripe fruit are however, very hard and difficult to
crack. The nuts inside the seeds look like dry coconuts but are harder compared to dry coconut. The hardness of the seed has discouraged any attempt at experimenting with it to develop any products. You may need an axe to crack a matured seed in a ripe palmyra palm fruit.
Amazingly, further enquiry indicates that the palmyra fruit trees serve as timber log for builders in some communities in the region because of the hardness of the wood made from it. This has resulted in drastic reduction in the number of palmyra or agor trees in Agortime-Ziope. It looks like that’s the only commercial value they could make of the whole plant.
However, on a few occasions when I changed my route on my return journeys from Ho to Ketu South, by passing through Adaklu, Adidome and Sogakope to Denu, I noted that Adaklu has a lot of the palmyra palm trees and has been able to preserve a lot of the palmyra palm trees with a lot of golden fruits on them. I also saw some few palmyra palm trees between Adaklu and Adimome as well.
I’m unable to tell whether deeper into the lands of Agortime-Ziope District there could be more palmyra palm trees as I only did my observation from the roadside around the District Assembly office and got the fruits for the experiment not far from the office.
I believe it would be viable going into commercial production of palmyra palm juice for the Ghanaian market and hopefully for export. To go into commercial production, Adaklu is currently capable of supplying the palmyra fruit in commercial quantities from the limited data I have observed. Agortime perhaps may have more palmyra palms I’m not yet privy to. Also, Kintampo is capable of suppling palmyra palm fruits in commercial quantities.
The good thing about the palmyra palm fruit is that it has a tough fibre such that it’s not fragile and can withstand any weather condition and any difficult road terrain or long distant transportation. As a result, any processing factory can be established far from the sources of the fruits.
The nut in the seeds of the fruits of the palmyra palm could also be used for something useful upon careful assessment by experts or engineers. The fibre is very strong and could be turned into very useful product as well. So it would be more economical making products from the ripe fruit than using the sweet soft white jelly inside the immature seed.
The commercialisation of the palmyra palm would encourage people to go into plantation farming of it. Also, because the palmyra palm trees grow high and their leaves do not create much shade, it is possible to go into mixed cropping within its’s plantation. The palmyra palm is completely drought resistant and doesn’t need so much water to
thrive. The palmyra palm likes to be spaced, which means farmers can grow the palmyra palm trees and still have their land to grow their vegetables, yam, maize and other crops.
The palmyra palm fruit has wide range of nutritional and health benefits. Research published in the Pharma Innovation Journal in 2021 indicates that the fruit pulp helps to cure skin inflammation. It is used to treat nausea and vomiting and worm infestation. It is further used as an expectorant as well as liver tonic. Because of its richness in minerals and vitamins, it serves as healthy option for people on diet or suffering from diabetes. It serves as a rich sources of vitamins B and C. It has minerals such as iron, zinc, potassium, calcium, phosphorus, thiamine, and riboflavin. It is also noted to have anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. Pramod, Yadav, Raje, Mohite and Wadkar (2017) attributed the antioxidant properties in the palmyra fruit to the presence of high content of crude flavonoids, saponins, and phenolic compounds in it.
It is astonishing that Ghana has so many natural resources untapped but it looks like we’ve always been waiting for someone from somewhere to come and add value to these resources for us.
In one of my favourite courses I did in my first-degree program, Resource Analysis, I learnt that: Resources are not, they become (Zimmerman, 1950). Only we Ghanaians can add value to our resources and make wealth out of them. It is disheartening to see our businessmen passionately importing mixed chemicals made by Chinese and Indians as refreshing drinks for their fellow Ghanaians to drink, leading to rise in kidney failures amongst other complicated ailments.
It is my hope that there would be a great awaking in our land Ghana, so we would eschew greed and selfishly but think of the mark we would be leaving in the sands of time for other generations to remember us for. And by this article I invite the government and businessmen to make the golden fruit of Agortime-Ziope (palmyra palm fruit) natural refreshing drink on our shelves at the shops and malls and in planes to the world market.
Build Ghana!
BY: BENJMAIN KWAME LIVINGBIRD
SENIOR HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGER
KETU SOUTH MUNICIPAL ASSEMBLY
[email protected]
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