N2Africa-Malawi participated in the launch of USAID-funded project "Integrating Nutrition in Value Chains" (INCV) on 12 July 2012, an event which also marked the 100th day in office for the new president, Her Excellency Joyce Banda. Since INVC will be promoting soybean production and consumption for improved livelihoods and nutrition, N2Africa exhibited some of the soybean technologies being promoted in Malawi; from why and how to use inoculants to household level production of soybean food products (soy milk, protein-fortified flour and snacks).

Julieta Mario comes from a long line of good women farmers, and manages her farm in Magige Village, Gurure Province, together with her mother Carlota Sabonete – still an active farmer. As with most of the country, Gurure was badly affected by Mozambique’s long civil war; like other farmers, Carlota was happy to resume farming when peace was finally achieved nearly 20 years ago, passing her knowledge and skills on to her daughter.

For many of us – both in southern Africa and in Europe - July and August are the time of year to escape from work and email, though for our colleagues in East and West Africa cropping seasons are in full swing. It has been a busy period of interaction with both the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Howard G Buffet Foundation as we go through reporting rounds. The narrative report that covers the main activities over the past year is available on the N2Africa website if you would like to read it.

Irene Ngochi is a farmer from Emakhunje Village in the densely populated Emukhaya district of Western Kenya. Farm sizes in the district range from as small as 0.05 ha to 1 ha, with the majority (70%) of households owning 0.20 ha. Irene’s household owns an average farm of 0.25 ha. At the age of 50 years, Irene has developed a very positive attitude on planting soybean and climbing beans. "I used to plant soybeans sometime back but I stopped because I did not know how to use it and the yield I got was very small.

Something beyond the traditional farming experience in Sierra Leone is being introduced to let farmers benefit from grain legume crops. The common practice upon which the farming of these crops had been centred lacked maximum productivity and did not focus on nutritional and economic values. With the introduction of the N2Africa Project, however, those setbacks and disadvantages will soon become an experience of the past.

Ilse de Jager has recently joined the N2Africa project team at Wageningen University to conduct a literature study on the nutritional benefits of legume consumption at household level. As a nutritionist, she entered a new world of crops and farming. Talking about the uptake of nitrogen already resulted in some confusion, as it was referred to the uptake by the plant and not by the body. But it is exactly these two worlds we need to combine to understand N2Africa’s impact on nutrition.

The Soya team from TechnoServeInc sent us their Boletim Soja no. 9 in Portugese.

1. The World Soybean Research Conference IX.

This conference will take place February 17 – 22, 2013 at the Durban International Convention Centre in Durban, South Africa. This year’s theme is "From China to Africa – Can research close the gap between soy production and increasing global demand?"

See this link for a short ‘Perspective’ piece on how our thinking about approaches to helping farmers choose options within N2Africa can be more broadly applied to other approaches.

Ken Giller