MADECO

The Project

Muchinga Agricultural Development Company Limited

Enhanced soya bean production & processing programme

By focusing on value addition, farmer support programmes, project coordination and management, MADECO Ltd plans to support smallholding farmers to;

  • Increase their production and productivity
  • Build their Capacity
  • Increase their household incomes
  • Improve their household nutrition
  • Improve environmental management of their natural resources

Intended Outcomes

  • Establish a soya bean processing plant with a capacity of 20–50 tons per day to process raw soya beans into oil and by-products that include soya cake.
  • Support the training of 34 extension officers and 2,000 smallholder farmers (50 per cent of whom are women and youth) in water management, seed and crop production, and pest-control technologies, in environmental mitigation measures and health aspects related to irrigation, and in techniques of financial management and business planning, aspects of post-harvest handling and simple market research concepts.
  • Construction of community storage facilities and market centres.
Soya beans on a spoon

Products

Soya Beans

Cooking Oil

Soya Cake

Challenges and Lessons Learned

The use of certified/hybrid seed as compared to recycled seed has offered a better yield.

Capacity-building training has continued to act as a reminder to Extension Officers of critical agronomic steps to consider when offering extension services to farmers with regard to soya bean production. One such step is Training of Trainers in Soya Bean Production held in September 2019.

During the 2018/2019 farming season, the project experienced farming-input procurement gaps, a matter that is being addressed in the 2019/2020 farming season by having a dedicated procurement consultant. It is therefore hoped that, with the engagement of the procurement consultant, the gaps in the procurement of farmer inputs will be mitigated.

Way Forward

The project will continue to provide a market for soya beans as primary input to feed into the cooking oil plant.

Once the soya bean processing plant becomes fully operational, this will increase the income of the farmers/soya bean producers by increasing the access of their products to appropriate markets.