Baobab - homegrown vitamin C for Africa.

Abstract

The baobab (Adansonia digitata) is well distributed throughout The Sahelian and Sudanian zones of Mali. The greatest concentrations of trees are found in former and present village sites, where villagers protect and even manage the trees' growth and survival. Baobab trees are usually allowed to survive until their natural death in cultivated fields, where they are left undisturbed among the crops. On the Seno Plain of Dogon country, along Mali's southern border with Burkina Faso, villagers often plant baobabs within their own courtyards and nurture them until they are 23m tall, before transplanting them along the edges of cultivated fields.