USAID Helps Women Prosper by Growing Sought-After Botanical Ingredient for Export

August 2014

Flowering plant valued as a cosmetic ingredient provides regular income for rural poor

Freshly-picked common mallow flowers by Strpce women farmers, before being taken to a collection center.

Ankica Zivkovic, a common mallow grower and lead woman farmer from Gotovusa/Strpce, advising fellow women farmers on harvesting techniques of common mallow flowers and leaves.

USAID is helping expand cultivation of a flowering plant prized by the skin-care industry for its emollient properties to bring lasting economic relief to a multiethnic group of women farmers.USAID, along with the nonprofit Women for Women International, is supporting 17 ethnic Serb and Albanian women cultivate small plots of common mallow (Malva sylvestris) in two villages in this largely rural municipality in southern Kosovo. USAID provided the women with seeds, seedlings and drip-irrigation equipment, along with technical advice in raising the crop.The women began harvesting the plant’s leaves and flowers in May, selling them to Agroprodukt ShpK for 1.5 Euros per kilogram. The price allows each farmer, working in her spare time, to earn upward of the 300 Euros per month an average worker makes in Kosovo.“I like this crop because I get to work close to my home and it requires very little investment. I also see my neighbors who are doing really well working with this crop. They have their children working alongside, and are making a steady income,” says Ankica Živković, a farmer in the village of Gotovusha. “It’s easy to pick the flowers and anyone can do it. With other crops you don’t always have the market for it, so it’s hard. In the case of common mallow we are guaranteed a market.”The women form part of a network of small family farmers who supply Agroprodukt. Working through collection centers, the firm buys freshly harvested mallow on a daily basis from May through October.In Gotovusha and the nearby village of Brod, the women tend family plots that range in size from 500 to 1,000 square meters. Overall, about 4 hectares (10 acres) of mallow are under cultivation across Kosovo. The nature of the mallow plant limits its cultivation to small plots.“Although common mallow is such is a demanding and labor-intensive crop, it is also much sought-after and very suitable for farming families with many hands to help,” explains Samir Reza, a medicinal and aromatic plant expert with USAID’s New Opportunities for Agriculture (NOA) project.

USAID/NOA’s Program Director (from right) and MAP expert visiting fields of common mallow worked on by women farmers

Agroprodukt collects and dries the mallow plant’s leaves and flowers and then exports them, mostly to buyers in Germany. There, the plant finds its way into a large number of cosmetic and natural-health products. For example, the flower extract contains a soothing gel used in skin lotions. Meanwhile, its leaves are used in herbal and medicinal teas.Some of the women farmers have begun to dry mallow on their own, which earns them a higher price and expands Agroprodukt’s export capacity. In response, the firm is considering offering some of the growers a five-year contract, says owner Halit Avdijaj.“This is the first time we have targeted women farmers in resource-poor, rural areas and have managed to arrange the logistics for this very sensitive product and maintain its quality to meet stringent European Union quality standards,” says Mark Wood, chief of party of USAID’s NOA project. “To see the enthusiasm and self-esteem shown by the women farmers in having their own income source is very encouraging.”USAID funded the NOA project to support its overall strategy of promoting growth, creating jobs and generating exports in Kosovo.