Kidapawan-Grown Edamame

Passes Chef’s Standards
Robata Japanese Restaurant owner and chef Alex Sebastian yesterday said the Soybeans that we now grow in a Trial Farm in Barangay Paco, Kidapawan City is comparable in quality to the imported “Edamame” from Japan.
“Edamame” is “an East Asian dish prepared with immature soybeans in the pod. The pods are boiled or steamed and may be served with salt or other condiments. The dish has become popular across the world because it is rich in vitamins, dietary fiber, and isoflavones,” according to wikipedia.
Alex, a native of Leyte who worked as Chef in high-end restaurants overseas for so many years and is married to a lady from Kidapawan City, owns a chain of Japanese Restaurants with branches in General Santos City and Davao City.
Early this year, when he heard that I was propagating Soybeans in Kidapawan City and other parts of Central Mindanao, he asked if I could supply him with “Edamame.”
He said imported “Edamame” costs between P700 to P900 per kilo while fresh green beans which they used in preparing salad fetched as much as P1,500 per kilo.
Yesterday, I brought him two bean pods from a Soybeans variety which came from the U.S. given to me by my friend in Texas, Coby Kriegshauser.
The US Soybeans has bigger bean pods than the local varieties and the quality, according to Chef Alex, is comparable to the imported young Soybeans from Japan.
With this development, we will now expand our Soybeans production so that we could supply Japanese Restaurants in the country with locally grown “Edamame” which could be priced much lower than the imported beans.
This is a perfect example of a market-driven agriculture where farmers produce commodities needed by the market.

#KungGustoMaramingParaan!
#MarketOrientedAgriculture!