Scientists are urging farmers to cultivate and incorporate soybean into their local diets for improved nutrition and to generate income.

It's also important for people in developing countries to diversify their diets for the food demands of their growing population to be met. Their population is growing rapidly. However, food production has been reducing due to challenges such as climate change, reduced farm land, and declining soil fertility

Scientists from Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, and Mozambique, who gathered in Nampula in Mozambique recently, advise that communities need to start eating new foods and developing new recipes. One crop they have in mind is the soybean. It will not only meet the nutritional needs of the people, but also put some money in their pockets and transform lives.

Dr Mabel Mahasi, a scientist from the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI), says: "I tell Kenyans they have to supplement ugali with soybean blended foods because when there is no maize, they starve."

Soybean, with its 40 per cent protein, is richer than any other food crop or even livestock. It is also made up of 20 per cent oil, and contains all the eight essential amino-acids, making it the healthiest legume crop. Unfortunately, the crop is not well exploited in sub-Saharan Africa, where it is mostly seen as a cash crop.

According to Dr Hailu Tefera, a soybean breeder from the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), it is a hunger food, an animal feed, and an industrial crop that also enriches the soil by fixing nitrogen from the air into the soil. It is a versatile crop that can do well in all the maize growing areas in sub-Saharan Africa.

The scientists are part of a team working on the Tropical Legume II project that, among other five grain legumes, seeks to enhance soybean and cow pea production in areas affected by drought in sub-Saharan Africa. The project is exploring and promoting innovative ways to process and utilise soybean to stimulate production.

It is a collaboration between the International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics, International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA), International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), and their national partners. The scientists had met to review the activities of the project.

In Tanzania, according to Dr Fidelis Myaka, from Ilonga Agricultural Research Institute, the rate of acceptance of foods processed from soybeans has increased tremendously. The food recipes developed fit well into the country's lifestyle and eating habits. The recipes, include soy milk, soy blend porridge for children, weaning food for children and blending of soy flour with wheat flour to make nutritious bread, cookies, and mandazi.

Dr Jonas Chianu, of the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture -Tropical Soil Biology and Fertility Institute (CIAT-TSBF), says some farmer groups and individuals in western Kenya, where the project is working, are already earning money from small-scale processing of soymilk. They use processing machines imported from India. The soymilk has a short shelf life, therefore, they are also making and selling soymilk yoghurt.

"We introduced the VitaGoat that processes 1,350 litres of soymilk in a day. And now, due to increased demand for soymilk, some groups have gone ahead and purchased a bigger processor, the SoyCow," he said.

One of the drawbacks of soybean consumption as a food crop is that it cannot be eaten without processing. Ms Penina Muoki, a food scientist working with IITA in Mozambique, says the soybean is the only legume that has to be processed before consumption.

"Soybean contains anti-nutritional factors such as trypsin inhibitors that stop the absorption of protein in the body," she says. "Trypsin is the enzyme that digests protein. The anti-nutritional factors are destroyed by high temperatures such as boiling for 30 minutes before processing the soymilk or soy flour. "

The soybean production in the four countries is generally low due to lack of high yielding varieties, lack of good crop management practices and poor market access.

According to Dr Steven Boahen, an IITA agronomist, the project is working with farmers to breed soybean varieties with desired traits such as drought tolerance, early maturity, high and stable grain yield, and pest and disease resistance.

"To ensure the seeds of the improved varieties get to the farmers at the right time, we are working through community based seed systems," he says. "The farmers are growing certified seeds of the improved varieties to sell to other farmers after receiving training on production of seeds."

He says private seed companies are usually not interested in grain legumes because of the low profit margins. "If the legume seeds are expensive, the farmers will not buy them. They will save some of their harvested crop to use as seeds in the next planting season."

In Kenya, CIAT -TSBF operates a payback system, where the farmers are provided with 25kg of seeds and they are expected to return to the project double the amount. This is then given out to two more farmers and the chain continues.

In all the four countries, the processors of animal feed and vegetable oil import soybean, as local production is not able to meet their demand. The small-scale farmers growing soybean are usually far and scattered, making it uneconomical for the companies to collect their soybean. The small-scale farmers, on the other hand, complain about the lack of markets for their soybean.

To solve this disjoint, the project is organising the farmers into groups to sell their products collectively. Also, introducing new alternative and simple ways to utilise soybean is motivating the farmers to grow the crop as they no longer have to be rely only on poultry and vegetable oil companies to purchase their crop.

Dr Hailu hopes that the four countries can learn from Nigeria's example. By deliberately investing heavily in its soybean production, processing, and utilisation, the country moved from producing 20,000 tonnes annually in the 70s to the current over 600,000 tonnes. Today, Nigeria is the largest soybean producer in Africa accounting for 43 per cent of soybean produced on the continent.