| Soy Production in Belize |
Plenty promotes the value of small-scale village-based soy bean agriculture and soy foods production as a way to improve nutrition, soil quality, and food security.
Plenty has worked with farming cooperatives and families who are seeking to bolster self-sufficiency and sustainability by learning organic farming methods and adding new crops for consumption and local markets.
Soy has also been incorporated in the School Lunch Program, providing instruction on how to prepare this high protein food to increase nutrition.
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Soybeans grow in a school garden. |
Soy Demos |
Plenty begins its introduction to soy by doing cooking demonstrations in villages and communities.
This gives people an opportunity to taste various types of easily prepared soy foods, creating interest.
Soaked beans are ground then cooked in a pot.
The pulp is strained to produce soy milk, which can then be curded to create soy cheese or tofu.
The pulp is called "okara" and can also be used in various dishes or as animal feed. |
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Plenty Belize board member Gomier Longville demonstrates how to prepare various types of soy foods for the residents of a village in Belize. |
Soy in Punta Gorda Town |
Gomier makes soymilk at the his soy processing
facility in Punta Gorda.
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Plenty Belize board member Gomier Longville operates "Gomier’s Foods," a small restaurant and soy production facility in the town of Punta Gorda.
The menu features a variety of soy foods, from soy fritters and soy burgers to ice cream made from soy milk.
This small business was originally sponsored by Plenty and now operates independently, frequented by both tourists and local customers.
Gomier has over 20 years of experience in soy agriculture and processing in Plenty soy projects. |
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Farmers and Soy |
Another step in the process of introducing soy to a new region is to get local farmers involved, growing soy as either a cash crop or for their own use.
Belize imports thousands of tons of soybeans every year, so there is a huge market for soybeans grown in Belize. Mayan farmers in Toledo who also raise pigs are spending precious hard cash to purchase pig feed made of corn and soy.
They see the potential of a bean that has an unlimited market, can provide milk and protein for their families, and a by-product that can be used to feed their pigs.
Plenty's soy technician Chuck Haren visited Toledo and issued this report:
"I spent a day planting soybeans with two six-member farmers groups in San Jose, a Mopan Maya village of about 300 families. Each of these groups is planting 1/2 acre in soybeans.
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Farmers in rural Belize typically rely on slash and burn
to prepare their fields for planting. |
"As we hiked to their milpa plots through the rainforest, each farmer stopped to cut a six-foot planting pole from the bush. They told me they always cut fresh poles for planting because they're green and heavy which makes it easier to poke holes in the untilled earth for the seeds. The plots were covered in dried corn stalks that had been macheted down after harvesting. This layer of vegetation would remain to help fertilize the soil and keep the weeds down.
"I had brought along a soil pH tester and we checked different sections of the plots. Readings were good, 6 and higher which is recommended for soybeans. No lime would need to be added to either plot. "
Then we dampened the seed and mixed in a dash of black, powdery inoculant that is added to the seed the first time an area is planted to stimulate the nitrogen-fixing process that soybean plants perform as they grow. Then each farmer filled his home-made seed bag, slung it over his shoulder and headed to the field with his pole.
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Chuck Haren (rt.) and Inocensio Sho, test soil pH
in future soybean field at Blue Creek Village. |
The plots were on gentle slopes and the men formed a line across the lower end of the slope and began working their poles into the earth, poke four holes and toss three soybeans in each hole, moving side to side, back and forth to each other, greet your partner, dosey do, and slowly up the hill in an ancient, time-worn dance of planting that has taken place for thousands of years in agrarian societies around the world.
All the while they are bantering and jiving in Maya while I snapped pictures and instigated much hilarity when I took my turn at planting in the Mayan way with my pole and bag and halting style. I was the new kid on the dance floor, and it showed." |
Young Mayan farmers plant soybeans at San Jose. |
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