Radical crop farming project will benefit poor communities
The programme has already yielded positive results. It has facilitated the development of the Marianhill Research Farm
GOING green and green economy were the buzz words at the Farmers Open Day held at the Moses Mabhida Stadium on Friday. The event was aimed at raising awareness on the Edamame Development Programme and to unpack potential agribusiness opportunities for emerging and small scale farmers. The programme, which is a crop farming project, was first piloted in the City five years ago through the Municipality and the Green Fund. It was identified for its potential to tackle the triple challenges of inequality, unemployment and poverty.
Phakamile Mbonambi, programme manager for eThekwini Economic Development and Investment Promotions Unit, said the programme had been introduced five years ago by a group of researchers who wanted to explore the possibility of growing edamane beans in KwaZulu-Natal.
“The programme has already yielded positive results. It has facilitated the development of the Mariannhill Research Farm, the development of 83 commercial contracted emerging farmers and 256 small scale growers, growing both seasonal Edamame and vegetable crops. Moving forward the plan is to further facilitate 423 new permanent jobs and train approximately 826 people,” said Mbonambi.
The edamane bean has been hailed as the new super food with many health benefits, from reducing the likelihood of a range of diseases like breast and prostate cancer, osteoporosis, heart disease and high blood pressure. Emerging farmers were also engaged on how to broaden their growing footprint.The ground-breaking multi-million rand Radical Agrarian Socio-economic Transformation Programme, is expected to create over 58 136 direct jobs within the agricultural space.
The Edamame Development Programme (EDP) is a non-profit project of the Newlands Mashu Community Development Centre. The EDP aims to establish a vegetable soya bean industry in South Africa that will benefit poor communities through employment creation (small-scale farmers and households growing edamame) and improved nutrition, as edamame is a non-GMO high protein crop. The EDP is jointly funded by the Jobs Fund and eThekwini Municipality.
