Nigeria’s Rural Women Revolutionise Local Locust Beans

Locust beans are an indigenous plant grown for their pods with the seeds crushed and fermented, mostly by rural women farmers, for processing into seasoning for soups and stews. Despite the nutritional properties of the beans, which are high in calcium, the crop has previously not been commercialised due to issues associated with the smell of the produce and poor shelf life. These issues arise from basic local processing methods, such as sun-drying the beans in the open. To overcome these challenges, Adebowale Oparinu and Emmanuel Maduka co-founded LifePro Food Mills in 2018. The woman are trained by the start-up to pre-process the seeds by softening the pods (by boiling them) and manually depodding the seeds, which are then bought by the compagny at attractive prices.