01 March 2022, Sholgara district, Balkh, Afghanistan. Fahima a farmer partecipant to FAO soy cooking class, pose for a portrait with her children. Thank to cooking class by FAO, she learned to cook a variety of foods with soy.
650 rural women in Balkh, Jawzjan and Takhar provinces in northern Afghanistan received training on malnutrition, soya recipes, soy food preparation, health and hygiene to improve their daily diet through consumption of foods rich in soy at homes. One of the major challenges facing the people of Afghanistan is malnutrition and the lack of a feasible solution to eliminate it. The problem of malnutrition in Afghanistan is two-fold: protein deficiency, also known as Protein-Energy Malnutrition (PEM), and the consumption of unhealthy protein sources by people who can afford food. Soybean has the potential to reduce malnutrition in Afghanistan, contributing to improved dietary diversity and quality. Soybean is recognized as an oil seed containing several useful nutrients including protein, carbohydrate, vitamins, and minerals. Soybean protein is one of the least expensive sources of dietary protein and it is considered to be a good substituent for animal protein. Project symbol: OSRO/AFG/009/KOR