Climate-resilient soybean for improved growth and health of children in Uganda (Healthy Soy)

project summary

The Healthy Soy project describes how soybeans can contribute to mitigating some of the challenges Uganda experience in the context of climate change. The project covers research from growing healthy climate-resilient soybeans to feeding soy-based food supplements to children with malnutrition to improve their growth and health.

Climate changes are causing prolonged droughts, unpredictable rains and natural disasters. This results in lower crop yields and crops with lower levels of protein and other important nutrients. Moreover, food insecurity and malnutrition increase. There is substantial inequity in how these climate changes affect the Ugandan population. Smallholder farmers cannot afford irrigations systems to protect their crops against droughts, children are more vulnerable to malnutrition as they require nutrient dense foods to grow and develop normally and women are affected as they are both involved in growing crops and are primary caretakers of children.

Stunting is the manifestation of insufficient growth, a common form of malnutrition, which affects 30% of children below 5 years in Africa and 26% in Uganda. Although numbers are declining, we are far from reaching the sustainable development goal (SDG) to half the number of children with stunting in 2030. A key dilemma for addressing child stunting is to provide sufficient amounts of high quality, sustainable protein at low cost. The highest protein quality is found in animal source foods. However, this is usually not affordable in low-income settings. Soy protein is of higher quality than most other plant protein sources, but antinutrients can affect its bioavailability.

The Healthy Soy project will i) select climate-resilient soybean varieties with high protein and low antinutrient levels, ii) optimize soybean processing to furter reduce antinutrient levels and evaluate to which extent soy protein can support catch-up growth of children with stunting, iii) formulate new locally produced soy-based food supplements and test their effects on growth and health of children with stunting iv) strengthen research collaboration in Uganda among scientists from different backgrounds and distribute the results widely.