The new soybean variety named Favour, has been tested and proven to yield about 20 per cent more than the existing varieties and also sheltered more leaves that served as organic matter to the soil.

It also produces higher quality soymilk as well as other soy products and it is disease resistant compared to other varieties.It was introduced at the fourth annual soybean kick-off event held on Wednesday at Nyankpala near Tamale by the Soybean Innovation Lab (SIL) in partnership with CSIR-SARI, Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and Centre for Agriculture and Bio-sciences International (CABI).

The event brought together input dealers, extension agents, agricultural development agencies and the private sector to highlight the role of inputs in soybean production.

The event, said to be the only soybean-dedicated forum in the country that brought together the public and private sectors to discuss critical challenges and opportunities within the soybean value chain was dubbed: “Bundling inputs: The key to improving soybean yields.”

Dr Nicholas Ninju Denwar, a Senior Research Scientist at CSIR-SARI, who spoke about the new soybean variety, said it was named Favour because it had been the only soybean variety that possessed many qualities and could result in increased revenue for farmers compared to the cost of investment.

 Denwar said Favour was the only soybean variety that offered a lot of benefits to the industry, farmers and consumers in diverse ways and made farming less expensive considering the fact that it added more nutrients to the soil for subsequent productions.

Mr Mawuli Asigbee, Agricultural Manager at CRS said the introduction of new soybean varieties would help bridge the gap between demand and supply since the demand for soybean in the country was higher than its production.

Meanwhile, SIL has also introduced a multi-crop thresher suitable for threshing a variety of crops except groundnut, and it has a total output of 1500 to 3500 kilogrammes of grain per hour.

The thresher was introduced alongside the new soybean variety because it was realised that crop variety and processing were some primary causes of loss in soybean production.