Beans Phaseolus vulgaris

Family: Fabaceae

Beans grow amazingly well in the warm climate and rich soils of southern Uganda. There are two rainy seasons each year, and a farmer can can produce a crop of beans two or sometimes three times in one year. We became very familiar with the taste of beans, an important staple food, not just in Uganda, but in all the countries that we visited in East Africa. The stories we share here are from friends we made on Kira Farm, a vocational training centre near Kampala, Uganda.

Samuel is from Kitgum in the north of Uganda. This area has been through some very tough times. From the late 1 990's till the late 2000's thousands of children were abducted by the rebel group called the Lord's Resistance Army. Many people were killed or maimed, and many more had to lived in internally displaced persons camps for years, to stay safe from the marauding rebel group.
Samuel was abducted when he was just ten years old. He was with the LRA for six years before he escaped. As with many people in Uganda, some members of his family have HIV/AIDS, and others are elderly and unable to do physical work. Samuel sees it as his responsibility to provide for his family. One of the ways he will do this will be to plant beans and maize. If he can grow enough beans, he can sell the excess and use the money to pay school fees for himself and for his brothers and sisters.

Mary is the cook and store keeper at Kira Farm. Mary, with help from the students, cooks beans that are grown on the farm and then dried and stored. The beans are soaked overnight in warm water, then boiled for three hours in big pots on the woodfire stoves in the farm's kitchen.
They are served up in a sauce with some boiled greens, and posho, which is made from cooked maize flour. Mary loves beans because growing them saves money, and means the students get nutritious meals.

"In Uganda the [bean] soups are advised for pregnant, and mothers who have given birth. It helps in the improvement oftheir health... It's very important for each person to have beans at some point"

Herbert is the animal attendant at Kira farm. He told us three reasons why beans are the most important plant for him. He has taught himself English, and it is his third language. He also speaks his tribal language and Luganda, a major language of southern Uganda.

"One, I can eat that bean as a food, as a sauce. Two, I can plant that beans and I sell. Three, Also there is a vitamin in that beans. I can got vitamin."

Phaseolus vulgaris the common bean, is a herbaceous annual plant domesticated in the ancient Andes, and now grown worldwide for its edible bean, popular both dry and as a green bean. The leaf is occasionally used as a leaf vegetable, and the straw is used for fodder.

Botanically, the common bean is classified as a dicotyledon. Beans are legumes, so acquire their nitrogen through an association with rhizobia, a species of nitrogenfixing bacteria. 1 8.3 million tonnes of dry common beans and 6.6 million tonnes of green beans were grown worldwide in 2007. (Wikipedia 8/6/201 2)

Patrick Ndakidemi is a professor in the School of Life Sciences and Bioengineering at the Nelson Mandela African Institute of Science and Technology, Arusha, Tanzania. His background is in plant science research and teaching. When we asked him which plant was most important to him, this is what he replied.

"Coming from Africa, I think the most important plant for me is not one, there are many - in a group oflegumes. I love legumes. Why legumes? You see, in Africa animal proteins are scarce and the only source ofsupplementing these scarce animal proteins is through legumes, so poor farmers who cannot afford the expensive animal proteins - they survive on proteins from plants. So, I have a passion for legumes because legumes they supply proteins to our poor societies, so I normally do most ofmy research in legumes. Legumes, they can fix nitrogen and this nitrogen is the building blocks for proteins. That's why I love legumes."
Patrick went on to explain that the most important legumes grown in Africa are french beans (Phaseolus vulgaris), cow peas, pigeon peas, chick peas, ground nuts, and more recently soy beans. Patrick has done some great research which shows that by innoculating soil with specific bacteria, leguminous crops become more efficient at fixing nitrogen in the soil. This has led to large increases in yields and profits for rural farmers. Here is a QR link to an explanation of the research (http://www.publish.csiro.au/paper/EA031 57.htm)