Under the “Sustainable, resilient and inclusive food systems development Programme”, funded by the global Flexible Multi-Partner Mechanism (FMM), FAO has supported the Government of Zambia and the soybean industry in preparing the soybean value chain analysis and upgrading sector strategy for 2023-2028.

Hand-threshing, a widespread practice that undermines socio-economic benefits. The analysis highlighted the negative effects of the post-harvest hand-threshing method for the sustainable development of the soybean value chain. Over 90 percent of famers in Zambia, particularly women, use a hand-threshing method, which consists of beating the grain with a wooden stick on a hard surface. This method leads to grain damage and grain loss. It is also a limiting factor for the area cultivated, since when planting, farmers consider physical capacity and time needed for harvesting and packaging the crop for markets. Hence the harvesting process dictates the area planted and consequently quantity and quality of the crop sold. Hand-threshing does not only induce income shortfalls for the farmers. It also poses health risks for them, as the dust raised during hand-threshing is blamed for causing respiratory illnesses.

The Thresher Pilot Project: testing, evaluating and scaling-up mechanized threshing. To help mitigate these negative effects, the 2023-2028 Zambian Soybean Strategy has developed a mechanization component. The Thresher Pilot Project is to proof the concept. The team has worked with selected women-owned cooperatives in Lusaka and Central Provinces. This project is based on the assumption that the use of locally manufactured multi-crop threshers will speed up the time needed to thresh crops, improve product quality, increase income and encourage farmers to plant larger areas of the crop.