Stories tagged: soy

Soy Program Boosting Farmer Incomes in Southern Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa contributes less than one percent of the world’s soy, but the crop has the potential to become a key source of income for the region’s farmers. In the next 10 years, TechnoServe hopes to significantly increase the incomes of 200,000 households in southern Africa through the development of a competitive local soy industry.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has provided a grant that will support TechnoServe’s efforts in Zambia and Mozambique. The soy program will build on TechnoServe’s proven model for increasing farmer incomes by promoting improvements across an industry’s entire supply chain. TechnoServe, in partnership with a range of businesses, nonprofits and public-sector organizations, will help farmers purchase premium seeds and other supplies, learn vital techniques for growing soy, and form farmer business organizations. At the same time, TechnoServe will promote investments in soy storage and processing as it works to develop the local feed and livestock industries, ensuring that the smallholder farmers will have a stable market for their crops.

http://www.technoserve.org/resources/press-room/2009-2010-press-releases/soy-program-release.html

Conservation Agriculture

The combination of crop protection products and biotech crops has significantly helped advance conservation agriculture as a means of restoring and protecting soil and limiting erosion.

It is estimated that conservation agriculture can reduce soil erosion by 50 to 98 percent while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent through reduced oxidation of soil organic matter. No till is now being utilized on more than 95 million hectares, mostly in the USA, Brazil, Argentina, China, Canada and Paraguay.

No till farming in the USA doubled in the five year period following the introduction of herbicide-tolerant soybeans. It is estimated that this led to the preservation of 247 million tons of topsoil and 243 million gallons of fuel in 2002 alone.