A diamond in the rough: Angola’s vast and growing potential as a fruit exporter

With great year-round weather, soil and water supplies, Angola has huge potential as an agricultural exporter.

Aderito Costa, Angola’s Pitaya (Dragon Fruit) King and Yudo Borges, Angola’s Strawberry King have both set themselves apart from the competition by embracing a shared set of values through their passion for excellence, innovation, agricultural know-how, and community development. 

In southwest Huila Province, it’s harvest time in the strawberry fields. On a 60-year-old farm that converted from flowers and cattle. That’s how Yudo Borges became known as The Strawberry King.

"We have the best condition for to produce strawberries in the world. We are 2000 metres high. We've got a dry winter. But it's very good because when we plant, we start peaking already in winter, and it's dry. We don't have many pests, we don't have any fungus or anything and we irrigate our strawberries with spring water."

The temperature range here is ideal for year-round cultivation, as Yudo explains, "Even in summer, the … hottest day we can get up to 29-30 degrees. That is good for ripening the fruit."

Yudo brought in experts from South Africa at first, to train his team.

"We taught the girls how to pick. We've got the irrigation guys already taught how to irrigate and everything. So right now we are 100% Angolan-run company."

Most of the production goes to Luanda, filling supermarkets in the capital.

"We sell most of our strawberries in the Luanda market. So we get two cold room trucks leaving every week from our farm, taking close to two and a half to three tonnes of strawberries packed."

The logistics of this can be challenging though. 

"There's still a large stretch of roads that are not very good. So this is a big problem. We are a thousand