Vegetable soybean, edamame: Research, production, utilization and analysis of its adoption in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

Food and nutritional insecurity constitute a main challenge in most Sub-Sahara African countries. Efforts to provide diets with sufficient nutrients such as proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins and essential minerals should include the introduction of new vegetable and legume crops. Vegetable soybean "edamame", is a nutritious vegetable legume well known and consumed in Asia and America, but underutilized in Africa. This review paper aims at documenting the existing information on edamame and analyzing the potentials for its use in Sub-Saharan Africa. The analysis of the existing literature revealed that vegetable soybean provides great advantages in term of production because of good market value of the fresh pods having a good market value and high demand on both local and international markets. Then, the consumption of edamame can also really contribute to reducing nutritional deficiencies in children and even adults, through its great nutritional content and good health benefits. Therefore, edamame is a good crop to promote in Africa. The promotion of edamame requires many research activities starting from evaluation of agro-ecological adaptation, determination of consumers' preferences and genetic improvement based on farmers, processors and consumers' needs, in order to sustain a seed system for the crop.

Vegetable Soybean and Its Seedling Emergence in the United States

“…A few studies have also focused on evaluating the disease resistance of different varieties of edamame [128][129][130]. High susceptibility to Phytophtora spp.…”

The Photosynthetic Efficiency and Carbohydrates Responses of Six Edamame (Glycine max. L. Merrill) Cultivars under Drought Stress

“…This crop is known for its high contents of protein, edible oil, isoflavanones and dietary fiber [ 2 , 3 ]. Since edamame has a short life cycle and can be grown at least four times a year under favorable conditions, it could generate income for small- and large-scale farmers [ 4 ]. Drought has the greatest negative impact in Sub-Saharan Africa, resulting in huge loss in crop and total crop revenues, which negatively affect small-scale farmers [ 5 ].…”

“…Drought has the greatest negative impact in Sub-Saharan Africa, resulting in huge loss in crop and total crop revenues, which negatively affect small-scale farmers [ 5 ]. The effect of drought directly contributes to nutritional insecurity in southern Africa, hence the introduction of crops such as edamame that have a high nutritional value [ 4 ]. South Africa produces about one million ton of commodity type soybean every year, but there is no recognized commercial production of vegetable-type soybean [ 3 , 6 ].…”

Analysis of Shoot Architecture Traits in Edamame Reveals Potential Strategies to Improve Harvest Efficiency

“…Edamame is a type of green, vegetable soybean which has become a popular food ingredient in many countries because it is a nutritious food source of protein, isoflavones, and vitamins ( Mentreddy et al, 2002 ; Lee et al, 2018 ; Mahoussi et al, 2020 ). Edamame has been cultivated in east Asian countries for more than 2,000 years and documented edamame varieties have been mainly originated from this area ( William and Aoyagi, 2009 ).…”