This public-private initiative, being tested in Uganda and Kenya with funding from Canada’s International Development Research Centre, also aims to increase bean consumption, improve diets, and create a more profitable market for bean farmers.
According to Joab Ouma of Lasting Solutions, a Ugandan company that is involved in preparing the beans, rural people usually use firewood for cooking, while charcoal is the main fuel in urban areas. Nearly 90 percent of the country's energy needs are met by charcoal and firewood.
Those fuels are a direct cause of deforestation, yet until now the poorest consumers “had no choice” but to use them, Ouma said.
Uganda has lost forest rapidly in the past two to three decades, and the government has set a target to increase forest cover to 21 percent of land in 2030, up from 14 percent in 2013.
With the pre-cooked beans, the time needed to cook meals is greatly reduced, lowering the use of charcoal and firewood - and potentially easing the pressure on forests. A survey in Uganda showed an average family consumed about 12 kg of beans per month, requiring around 288 kg of charcoal per year to cook them.
The project, targeting a sample of 10,000 households in Kenya and 7,000 in Uganda, should prevent some 400,000 kg of charcoal being burned per year.
Once consumer demand for the product has been created, equipment to scale up production will be introduced in Uganda and Kenya.
There also plans to expand the initiative across Africa by supporting the development of value chains for pre-cooked beans.
Work will begin in Tanzania and Ethiopia in March 2017, and will then be rolled out in Zambia, Nigeria, Ghana and the Sahel region.