Scale-up Supply of Precooked Beans for Food and Nutrition Security by Leveraging on Public-Private Partnerships in Kenya and Uganda
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Lead institution(s)
Summary
Beans are the most important pulses grown in sub-Saharan Africa. They constitute a significant part of the diets of resource-poor segments of society and enhance the nutritional quality of their diets.Read more
Beans are the most important pulses grown in sub-Saharan Africa. They constitute a significant part of the diets of resource-poor segments of society and enhance the nutritional quality of their diets. However, the bulk of the crop is consumed as dry grain, which takes longer to cook and presents a major constraint to bean consumption.
Precooked beans can contribute to food and nutrition security, income, and employment for smallholder producers and consumers, especially for women, who tend to grow this crop. An earlier phase of this project developed products that reduced cooking time and women's drudgery, improved environmental quality, transformed ad-hoc dry bean markets to structured industrial-driven markets, and contributed to dietary diversity among consumers.
The goal of this follow-up project, implemented in collaboration with the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization and the National Agricultural Research Organization, is to improve food and nutrition security, income generation, and environmental conservation by promoting the use of precooked beans and leveraging public-private partnerships in Kenya and Uganda. It will test the efficiency of various business models for producing and supplying beans for processing and analyze factors that affect the performance of partnerships, including public-private partnerships. In addition, the project will assess impacts of social, gender, and economic trade-offs of market-driven production and supply models on household consumption patterns, food security, nutrition, and social and economic welfare among households.
This project is funded through the Cultivate Africa’s Future Fund (CultiAF), a joint program of IDRC and the Australian International Food Security Research Centre of the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research. CultiAF supports research to achieve long-term food security in eastern and southern Africa.
Research outputs
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The project aimed at leveraging public-private partnerships to scale up utilization of precooked bean innovations for food and nutrition security, income generation and environmental conservation in a gender equitable manner. The project worked with 20,558 farmers (6,962 men; 9,893 women; and 3,703 youth) adding 1,659 farmers in this phase compared to Phase 1 (18,899). This report provides details of project results including: increasing productivity by 17% with a trading value of CAD$154,667 along with decreased energy demand (such as charcoal and wood burning); and as well, freeing up women’s time constraints. The project was successful even considering pandemic conditions.
This one-page project brief describes the aims of the project to promote the utilization of precooked bean products, improving food and nutrition security; as well as supporting the generation of income for smallholder farmers and environmental conservation practices. Researchers will leverage public-private partnerships in Kenya and Uganda. In this second phase of the project the supply of raw beans will be scaled up by boosting production among farmers, especially women.
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