Soybean Utilization and Fortification of Indegenous Foods in Times of Climate Changes

Abstract

Food security remain an unfulfilled dream for more than 800 million people (Combes et al., 1996) who are unable to lead healthy and active lives because they lack assess to safe and nutritious food. More than 840 million people lack access to enough food to meet their daily basic needs, while more than one third of the world’s children are stunted due to diets inadequate in quantity and quality (WHO, 2001). Widespread nutritional problems are steadily reported in less developed countries (LDCS). This is manifested in protein energy malnutrition indicated within vulnerable groups such as infants, children, the elderly, and pregnant and lactating mothers, who often have high nutrient needs. Anon (2003), reports that the World Health Organization (WHO) called protein energy malnutrition, (PEM), the silent emergency. According to this report, it declared that PEM is an accomplice in at least half of 10.4 million child deaths each year. WHO (2001) reports that malnutrition cast long shadows, affecting close to 800 million people with 20% of all such people in the LDC. Reports of these wide growing nutritional problems have been steadily mentioned even in Nigeria (Smith and Oluwoye, 1988). Majority of this class is found in the rural areas and urban slums where common heritage of poverty, ignorance, poor sanitation and other conditions contribute to the problems of malnutrition, interfere with its solution, and thus perpetuate a vicious cycle. Most malnourished people live in Asia and Africa; and the staple of most people in Asia and Africa are starchy pastes. These pastes are made from cereals (sorghum, rice, maize, wheat, millet, acha) roots and tubers (cassava, yam, sweet potato and plantain). These crops do not only provide marginal nutrition (especially for children) but also require high inputs of time, labour and fuel to prepare. In most cases they are consumed as combinations in the home because the blends provides complementary balance of amino acids (proteins) in the diet (FAO, 1985). That Africa and especially sub Saharan Africa is in danger of food shortages is no longer news. What is news however is the inability of this region to rise to the great danger facing this region in terms of provision of adequate food. It was in response to this bleak future that the Bill Gate foundations (2007-2009) sponsored recent research on the possibility of development of drought resistant legumes including soybeans for the areas prone to drought. This was in the realization that these legumes would not only provide needed protein there by improving the nutritional status of the farming populations it would also enhance the socioeconomic status of the populace through value chain addition.