Hazera’s Mini-Watermelon comes to Africa – Delighting farmers and consumers

Hazera, a global leader in the seed industry, recently introduced the Polimore, a small, tasty, firm seeded watermelon with an exceptionally long shelf life, to the African market. The hybrid fruit was developed to improve on the local watermelon, whose lack of taste, quality, firmness and disease resistance – plus short shelf life and prohibitive price – resulted in very low market demand.

The easy-to-grow Polimore’s adaptability to African conditions will provide a boon. Its long shelf life benefits all involved in the marketing chain – farmers, distributors and consumers – and enables export to neighboring countries without negative results (consumers can still eat the fruit several days after purchase). The Polimore’s total yield – and the price obtained for the crops – are generally higher than those of the traditional watermelons.

Consumers prefer the taste, size (two to three kilograms), shelf life and reasonable price of the Polimore watermelon to those of the larger ones to which they were accustomed. The growth of consumer demand has shown the growers that the switch to Polimore benefits everyone.