#AgriChallenges

 

Superfoods from Germany: when soybeans are more locally grown than potatoes

Temperature map: edamame beans in Germany

Father of three daughters, Benedikt Sprenker, is the third generation of his family to farm here. He could never have predicted that they would grow edamame beans on the farm. "One day, my wife and I were sitting on the sofa with a book about soybeans," he recalls. "We read about tofu, Asian sauces and edamame, which we'd not heard of before," he says with a grin. The idea of growing these beans was born, and a glance at the temperature map only strengthened their resolve. In addition to Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg in Germany, in 2009, the region around his farm was identified as being suitable for growing soybeans.

"So for two years, we experimented with growing edamame beans," which, he explains, involved a great deal of trial and error. "In the third year, we finally got our first successful edamame harvest." Today, his produce can be found in regional food retailers. "It's not everyone that gets their products onto the supermarket shelves," he says proudly.

Grain legumes: a sustainable footing

The soybean is just one of many beans that Benedikt Sprenker grows on his farm. Field beans have been an integral part of his crop rotation since 2002. Grain legumes not only improve soil fertility and structure, but they also fix atmospheric nitrogen in their roots, supplying themselves and the follow-on crop with nitrogen. So, no additional synthetic or organic fertilizers are needed. What's more, the flowers of these plants are an important food source for insects.

The farmer grows pulses on around 12 to 15 percent of his arable land. "Black beans, runner beans, cannellini beans—we grow ten to twelve different varieties. We are the only ones within a radius of several hundred miles to do this," he says.

He is particularly proud of the fact that almost everything can be reused. Benedikt Sprenker points to the threshed beans lying in a crate at the edge of the field. "This is B-grade material. It will be dried and sieved." The family uses it to make a falafel mix, cream and pasta, which are sold in the farm shop or online.

If new crops are to be part of the answer to climate change, we must learn how to deal with them. "The weather in 2023 was a huge problem," explains Benedikt Sprenker. He sows soybeans at five-day intervals so that they don't all ripen at once. "Very few of the first three batches germinated because of the summer drought," he says. On a more optimistic note, he adds,

"They came good in the end though. Agriculture will adapt to the new climate conditions!"