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Soya bean: The people’s crop

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IN the previous episode, we briefly looked at the challenges cited by the white-dominated agricultural sector as factors preventing African farmers from producing soya bean.
We saw that blacks were dispossessed of their fertile lands and forced to move to areas designated as African reserves which had low agricultural potential.
Determined to find at least some pockets in the reserves where soya bean could be grown, I undertook a tour of most communal areas across the length and breadth of Zimbabwe to assess the potential for soya bean.
One could almost guarantee that if you encountered sandy soils you were in an African communal area or a former native purchase area (matenganyika), now called small scale commercial farms.
Soils with a high clay content were invariably located in the former European areas.
The soils and the vegetation, itself a reflection of the rainfall regime, distinguished what was European areas from those designated African.
The liberation war was fought under the banner of ‘ivhu kuvanhu’.
The whites were designated as ‘vapambevhu’ (soil/land thieves).
Here are some examples of soils that we came across as we surveyed soils for suitability for soyabean production.
Along the Harare-Nyamapanda Road, one finds fertile red soils up to a point that is less than a kilometre from Juru Growth Point.
At that point there is a dramatic change from rich red soils to sandy soils.
This is where the former European-owned farms ended. Beyond lie the Chikwaka Communal Lands and further along the Nyamapanda Road through Murehwa communal lands sandy soils occur widely.
These soils are derived from granite rocks which dot the landscape in many parts of Zimbabwe.
Therefore most communal areas have these sandy low fertility soils.
Most importantly, the sandy soils have very low levels of organic matter and very few plant nutrients.
They also have poor water-holding properties so they dry out easily.
The soils also have high levels of phosphorus and nitrogen. Acidity (low pH) levels are also common in most of these sandy soils.
The above characteristics make the soils unsuitable for crops such as soya bean.
In order to make the sandy oils suitable for growing soya bean, farmers have to apply manure or lime to reduce the acidity.
The manure will not only reduce the soil acidity but will improve availability of plant nutrients and improve the soil’s ability to hold water.
Another strategy used by communal farmers even before the advent of commercial fertilisers was the practice of digging up termite mounds and spreading the anthill soil over the field.
Anthill soils are not only high in clay content but also are alkaline, which is to say they have a high pH.
This helps to neutralise soil acidity (low pH), allowing crops such as soya bean and maize to grow well.
In Chiweshe Communal Lands where many soils are sandy, we observed that soya bean grew better where farmers had spread anthill soil (high clay content, high pH) on their fields.
It appears the anthill soil which has a high pH helped to neutralise the acidity in the sandy soils.
In another observation in Hwedza during the 2001/2 drought year, we observed that in fields with anthills, the first soya plants to wilt were the ones furthest from anthills.
That showed the importance of clay in keeping soil moisture.
Research by soil scientists also shows that in sandy soils, fertilisers are easily washed down and lost during heavy rains but in soils with a high content of clay, such leaching losses are not that high.
Another interesting observation that came from our survey was that soil bacteria and fungi occurred in large numbers in soils with high clay content.
This suggests that clay protects these small organisms from being killed by drought or heat.
Bacteria and fungi are good for soil fertility as they break down organic matter to release nutrients for crops.
Perhaps we should say another thing about manure. It contains plant and animal remains which release nutrients as they rot or decompose.
Compost (murakwani, SH.) is made up of plant remains.
If added to soil, crops like soya bean and maize grow better.
The problem for communal farmers as I found out was that they had few or no cattle to supply manure.
Readers may recall that when whites invaded our land they stole most of the African cattle.
Disease and droughts finished the rest.
This is why many Africans are poor today and do not have cattle manure to apply to their fields to improve soil fertility.
The second agro-ecological challenge faced by African communal farmers is poor rainfall.
From the time the Pioneer Column raised the Union Jack (British Flag) at what they called Fort Salisbury (now Harare), they kept rainfall records.
Each wave of settler colonists who came from Britain were furnished with maps of the country showing soil types and rainfall patterns.
The white settlers used the rainfall and soils records to identify the land with the best agricultural potential.
Their colonial Government then gazetted the areas chosen by settlers and chased out the legitimate indigenous owners by force.
As most Zimbabweans now know, the white invaders sponsored by the notorious Cecil John Rhodes did not pay a penny for the land they stole.
All crops require adequate rainfall, sunshine and moderate temperatures.
Soya bean is not suited to arid or semi-arid hot areas or to very cold temperatures such as in the Eastern Highlands and parts of the Highveld.
Places with low rainfall below 600mm per year are also not suitable unless irrigation is available.
Such areas include most of the low-lying areas in Zimbabwe’s Lowveld.
Low rainfall areas are found in areas like parts of Matabeleland North and South, Manicaland, Masvingo, parts of the Midlands and the northern parts of Mashonaland Central.
In these areas, soya bean does not do well.
If irrigation is put in place however, soya bean can be produced.
This explains the Zimbabwe Government’s pre-occupation with establishing viable irrigation schemes.
A soya-wheat rotation is ideal as soya is harvested in time for establishing the wheat crop.
On the other hand, many areas on the Highveld in the Mashonaland provinces and eastern highlands of Manicaland receive high rainfall.
Moderate rainfall is recorded in some parts of Midlands, Masvingo and small pockets across other provinces.
All these areas are suitable for soya bean production.
In general, the higher the rainfall, the better the soya bean yields.
Another excuse given for Africans being incapable of producing soya bean was that the crop required a bacterial preparation called rhizobium which needed to be kept in a refrigerator.
It turned out that refrigerators were a rare sight in African communal lands.
The African purchase areas such as Zviyambi in Hwedza, Chesa in Rushinga and Chitomborwizi in Makonde and others, were relatively dry with low fertility soils also not suitable for soya bean.
Needless to say the Department of Conservation and Extension (CONEX) had neither time nor budget to promote soya bean farming among Africans.
Research by both Government and private sector companies did not target African producers.
Most reports we received on our initial visits to the few farmers who knew about soya bean production indicating that the grain was hard to cook and gave a bad off-flavour and smell which turned one off.
Africans did not know how to process soya bean for food and no one bothered to teach them. And soya bean was a crop for large scale white farmers until Dr Ephraim Hwingwiri, then with DRSS, ran a three-year soya promotion project in the Magunje area of Mashonaland West Province from 1987 to 1989.
Although the project showed great potential for soya bean production among communal farmers, it died the natural death of all donor-funded projects in Africa.

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