I recently completed my largest project yet, a USAID-funded introduction to soy bean cultivation to over 100 farmers in and around my community, Caserío San Luis. I first started planning and grant-writing for the project way back in February, so finally being able to say I’ve completed my first large-scale agricultural project, and one which I’ve worked hard on for months has felt extremely rewarding…and I’ve definitely felt just a little less stressed since .
The initial idea behind the project was to improve maternal and child health by introducing a new crop which was much more nutritious than just corn and beans, which generally make up almost all of the rural Salvadoran diet. Most importantly, soy beans consist of over 42% protein, which is more than double the protein content of corn or red or black beans (the types of beans normally traditionally grown in El Salvador). A lack of protein is one of the biggest factors leading to underweight children and malnutrition of pregnant mothers and babies, which plague my community. Additionally, soy beans suffer from less natural plagues than more traditional bean crops in El Salvador, meaning soy beans will lead to the use of less agricultural chemicals during their cultivation. Lastly, all legumes (hint, hint…soy beans) take nitrogen out of the air and replace it in the soil through their root systems, which is especially beneficial, since corn, the most common crop here, particularly thrives in nitrogen-rich soil.
The first part of this soy bean project was a training jointly given by an agricultural extension agent from CENTA, a part of the government’s Ministry of Agriculture, and me about the differences between farming soy beans and other types of beans Salvadorans farmers have more experience with. Since soy beans are a completely new crop to this area of El Salvador, it is important to familiarize farmers with them and make sure they are comfortable with what to expect and how to respond to any particular problems they have. We gave these trainings in 3 different communities and all were well attended. I had previously cooperated with the local councils of all three communities to select the families that could most benefit from the project and target them in our awareness campaigns trainings meant to inform residents of the opportunity they had. In San Luis, where I live, I know every family and I wasn’t too nervous about attendance and cooperation in my project, but in the two other communities, where I am familiar with many members of the community, but certainly not all, I was definitely nervous beforehand about high levels of collaboration.
The second half of the project was geared more for the mothers of the participating projects (while the first was geared more to whoever is doing the farming, which in El Salvador, is the male 90% of the time). It consisted of a cooking demonstration using the soy beans, teaching mothers how to turn their family’s crop of soy beans into soy milk, cheese, meat, and many other options. To me, this was the more critical aspect of the project, since overcoming the very strong Salvadoran cultural stigma against “foreign” or simply “different” foods certainly would be the largest hurdle a successful and sustainably introduction of soy beans to the area faced. I was also looking forward to this part of the project most myself—it meant a lot of eating a lot of real good food three separate times in each of the three communities where the project was located. With the help of a “soy expert” from a Salvadoran aid organization named ASAPROSAR, we demonstrated for over 100 women how easy it was to feed a family with soy beans, how delicious the food could be, and how healthy and nutritious all the products of soy were. Not only can just one pound of soy beans produce 24 cups of soy milk, but that same pound has contains the protein of 25 eggs or 2 pounds of beef (both of which are just too gross….or too expensive…for families around here to eat daily). While the first presentation was definitely a learning experience for me, by our third demonstration, I was pretty adept at making soy milk and cheese (flavored with chiles and many Salvadoran herbs and spices), along with spinach and carrot tortas, donuts, a surprisingly refreshing pineapple and soy juice, and an extremely nutritious baby food. I’d never really tried soy milk before, having always been a loyalist of pure, 100% real-thing, chocolate milk, but it turns out I really enjoyed the soy milk we made, and will definitely be drinking soy milk upon my return to the United States (and maybe even making the soy milk and cheese myself!).
Additionally, I also gave a few side presentations for farmers who were interested in the soy beans with the goal of better feeding their cattle, chickens, goats, or even bees. For all the same reasons soy is extremely nutritious for humans, it is an amazing additive to the diet of farm animals, increasing productivity and growth. If farmer’s can grow the soy themselves then make their own animal feed, that great improves their independence, sustainability, and profitability, taking agricultural supply stores and chemical companies completely out of the loop.
In the coming weeks I will be using the majority of the grant I received to buy about 400 pounds of soy bean seeds and then hand them out to all the families who attended each of the training sessions in their community. The grant paid for all the ingredients in the cooking demonstrations and will pay for the seeds, which were previously the largest impediment to entering the field of soy bean farming in western El Salvador. In all prior years, the Catholic Church in El Salvador had bought basically all the soy bean seeds in the country and steered them towards just one aid organization located on the other side of the country, completely blocking the majority of the country from enjoying the benefits of soy beans as a new crop. However, hopefully with this project, they will catch on with many new families (and I made an effort to find non-genetically modified seeds, meaning new seeds do not need to be bought every year, but beans from the best plants can be selected, saved, and planted the following year, enabling families to easily continue with the soy beans if they enjoy their first years harvest). While it will be at least a few years to see if the project in its entirety is truly successful and families are still planting and harvesting their soy beans, meaning I will no longer even be in El Salvador to really see how it all develops, I am at least hopeful at this point and excited about the possibilities. So while I will not be here to see the long-term results and sustainability of the project, this year over 100 families with be more nutritionally fed through soy beans for the first time ever, and, at least for now, that’s enough success for me.
