i Parkia biglobosa - School of Forest Resources & Environmental ...

oil the zuini for fourteen hours or more. Women’s labor is concentrated on weeding,
farming, and harvesting during the months of September, October, and November leaving
little time for collecting firewood. However, soybeans and soybean dawadawa were
available throughout the year. The soybeans only require enough wood to boil the seeds
for two hours to prepare soy dawadawa. Seasonality, the time when resources are
available, has a major effect on the production of dawadawa. Latunde-Dada (1997)
studying fermented foods and cottage industries in Nigeria found the locust bean
seasonality caused the production bottleneck. P. biglobosa trees are not managed in large
orchards. The supply of seeds depends on scattered individually owned trees that only
produce once a year and therefore are an unreliable source of seeds for industry. He
suggested soybeans could be substituted and scaled-up to larger industrial manufacturing.
Adoption of soybeans in Nigeria
Adoption of new crops and foods are dependent on relevant knowledge, the
amount of risk involved, and the potential benefits. A few innovative farmers in Kandiga
were testing introduced varieties of groundnuts anticipating increased benefits and
profits. I observed a few varieties of groundnuts different from the main variety, which
had small seeds and a pale pink testa. One variety had a maroon red testa referred to as
‘Nigerian’, quite large and robust seed. In another variety the testa had a red and white
marbled pattern that people referred to as the ‘agric’ variety.
A study by Shannon and Kalala (1994) examined production and utilization of
soybeans to determine if adoption of this crop would take place in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Approximately 50% of the farmers ranked soybean first or second in importance of local
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