Hello Hive

The one benefits you can always enjoy by growing your own food is that you will have the knowledge of the quality and nutritional benefits of what you eat. I have grown different kinds of annual crops crops for years now but soya beans a rich proteinous seed is yet to be among them. Lately soya beans have become widely used in the country to in order to add to our protein needs. Ever since the prices of meat, fish and chicken because really expensive, alot of people here have diverted to topping their meals with Tofu.

Tofu now serves the place of meat in our meals even though their taste is not thesame, my sis says it is part of the encouragement that makes food appealing just the same way meat does. I remember growing up drinking a lot of soya milk🍼🥛, together with biscuits they served as the tea and bread for our home that time. This was when we were in the north.
This made me to reason that Soya beans can only be grown in the north

This part of the country is also north central and looking at the weather conditions here I tried growing some few soya grains and also watches a neighbor farmer do thesame last year.

The proceed from the harvest showed that soya beans can be efficiently grown here with high level of productivity which is evident from my pictures here.

This year, soyabean is included as part of the crops to be planted in our mixed Commercial farming system.
Maize and Soya will be planted in this first session while guinea corn and Cassava will be planted in the second planting session.

Yesterday, the 2nd of May, marked when we planted the 🌽 maize.
For last year's soya planting, it was done in the months of July and harvest in October and November; this year we will plant it a bit earlier. Even though I had wished that this would be postponed, I was convinced by other farmers to plant it now so that it could be harvested earlier and not interfere with the second planting session.
The laborers have already commenced planting as soon as they received the seeds without waiting for our permission.

Seed Purchase

We will be planting soy beans on 4 acres of land. About 5kg of soy bean seed is needed per acre, while 1kg is sold at the rate of $0.75/N1050 per kg. It is the premier hybrid seed, which I hope will have a shorter life cycle and a high yield. It's a good thing that I have a place like #hive to document these. And the world can equally learn from and grow soya with me.

We have laborers all around to help with the various human labor needs. Since there are no planter machines or equipment needed for farming, some activities have to be done by hand. And planting is one of them.

Each laborer here will be receiving about $4 for planting, compared to the minimum wage of $4 for planting both maize and soya, which will take less than 24 hours. This seems like good pay to me. And this is one little way we are creating employment for the commoners in this place. So long as all these farming activities continue, they will have some jobs to do with lunch and pay.

These are of workers are teenagers and young adults who ought to be in school but because of the country and financial factors most of them are unschooled and prefer to work and earn money to feed themselves. I sincerely wish that it was possible for them to both be in school and have these menial jobs to support themselves but sometimes their parents are looking up to them for support and these monies are never enough. They can work on the farms in weekends and go to school during the weeks days but the conditions do not seem favorable right now. But at least it is fair enough that that can have something to eat from the farm at least

2-3 seeds of the bean are planted at a distance of 15-20 inches apart, although this may vary as we continue to learn about the best way to achieve this. It can be planted in between the maize but, most importantly, by the side. The maize remains in the middle of the ridges, while the maize is planted by the sides.

That is the work update on the farm today. Last night we had a brief shower, which is good as the soil will remain damp enough for the germination process to begin immediately.