El Niño Impacts Zimbabwe Peanut Butter Trade, Not Hope

WFP
Sorting roasted peanuts
Edith Ndebele and a colleague sort peanuts in junkyard in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second biggest city, in November - El Niño nearly destroyed her business. Photo: WFP/Cynthia Matonhodze

At one end of a junkyard - next to the rusty husk of an old bus and the broken remains of a 1958 Chevrolet Daley - Edith Ndebele carefully turns a metal drum heated by firewood, keeping an eye on the peanuts tumbling around inside.

The roast she's perfected flavours the thick, creamy peanut butter her customers love in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second-largest city, in the southwestern province of Matabeleland.

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"I'm faster now," says Ndebele - thanks to a roasting drum she received through a World Food Programme (WFP) initiative supporting urban entrepreneurs, cooking takes 30 minutes. "Using the old machine, I would take an hour, and it would use up all my firewood."

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