Mung bean (Vigna radiata L.): Protein-rich legume for diet diversification and malnutrition reduction in the Casamance, Senegal

Counterpart International (CPI) in collaboration with Virginia Tech will be engaged in a new Food for Education Program in the Casamance region of Senegal. The five-year project will be similar to the project we implemented in the St. Louis Region of the country from 2019-2021. We will use lessons learned from the previous project (St. Louis) to strengthen the capacity of 25 communities to produce mung bean and other crops in ecologically and climatically diverse regions of Senegal (Figure 1). We expect the growing conditions and cropping systems in Casamance to be drastically different from the northern region of Senegal where CPI successfully implemented a mung bean pilot project between 2019-2021. Some of the obvious differences are rainfall amount and duration, the length of the growing season, and soil types. In the St. Louis region, which forms part of the Sahel, the rainfall ranges from 300-400 mm while in the Casamance, up to 1200 mm rainfall is possible. The rainy season takes place roughly between July and November and lasts up to 6 months in the Casamance vs 3 months in the St. Louis region. Agricultural production is heavily dependent on the annual rainfall in the Casamance compared to the St. Louis region where irrigation is the main water source for agriculture.