Soybean Cultivation for Development Benedict Bernabe & Daniel Buchalter Creative Micro-enterprise Competition Finals, 6 September 2011
Why soybean cultivation? Makes use of existing assets Land, labour, farming skills.
Responds to farmers expressed intent to use microfinance loans to expand farms. Allows expansion of farms without overburdening markets with surplus of traditional produce. Generates more added value to the community (to be discussed later).
Plant is hardy, thrives well in different soil and irrigation conditions Grows well in warm climate Best planted in May – middle of Ghana rainy season Matures (pods grow) in 3 months – right before rainy season ends
Are soybeans profitable? 10x increase in Ghana’s import of soybeans in 2008 vs. 2007 – growing market (FAO 2011)
Import Value in USD 1000 (Source: FAO) 2356
2500
Low entry cost: skills and assets already in place. All you need are the beans!
2000
Soybeans can be sold as soon as harvested or stored with virtually zero constraints (Plahar 2006)
500
1500 1000 0
11
227
Import Value in (USD 1000)
Are profits sustainable? Sustainability is written all over our business model. The community can explore going into the production of these soy by-products over time: • Soy milk • Okara (“waste” from soy milk extraction) • Soybean curd • Tempeh (fermented soybeans) • Soybean oil • Soy sauce • Soy biomass briquettes
First harvest
Increase produc?on
Diversify into processing
• Soybeans sold as seeds • Profits used to expand farms
• Soybeans sold as seeds • Profits used as capital for micro-‐ processing industry
• Soy milk & soybean curd micro-‐ industries set up • Local demand for soybean created
• Training on domesKc uses of soy products creates demand Create new • Looking into venturing into other soybean by-‐products markets
Soy and the Community Soybean processing will not just be a source of off-farm livelihood but a source of nourishment for the community as well. Soy-based foods are extremely nutritious: High-grade protein – the only plant that provides all essential amino acids needed by body 100g of soy provides 33% RDA of calcium and 100% RDA of iron. (Plahar 2006)
Complements existing Ghana School Feeding Program (http://www.ghanasfp.com/): creating demand for local produce, creating incentive for education.
Questions? Benedict Bernabe benedict.bernabe@gmail.com Daniel Buchalter dbuch87@gmail.com
Soybean Cultivation for Development by Benedict Bernabe & Daniel Buchalter is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.