In April and May In Defense of Animals – Africa launched pilot sustainable agriculture projects in villages around the Mbargue Forest, which is home to Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Center. IDA-Africa provided seeds of soybeans and black-eyed peas and hired an expert to teach farmers how to plant and care for the new crops.

The goals were to improve the diets of rescued chimpanzees at Sanaga-Yong (and the village children who get severely protein deficient at weaning age), to decrease the expansion of farms into the forest by adding nitrogen back into the soil of existing farmland and finally to give farmers an additional source of income with produce that’s not as perishable as the fruits they grow.

Crops were hurt, especially the black-eyed peas, by a long drought, but farmers still produced a lot of soybeans. Sanaga-Yong staff really hoped the chimpanzees would enjoy endamame (green soybeans in the shells), and they do!

Staff buy the beans when they’re big but still green in the shells, boil them for twenty minutes and then give them to the chimpanzees who just LOVE them. Farmers have recently planted soybeans again for the second growing season! Black-eyed peas will be included again next year.

View a quick clip of Ava (enjoying an overabundance) and Boumba.