A California-based humanitarian organization is in Afghanistan this week to share its success in growing an Adel company’s soybeans, an accomplishment that could lead to the construction of a factory that will use an Urbandale company’s soybean processing technology to produce food for the country’s malnourished women and children.

An organization called Nutrition and Education International has relied on the generosity of two local companies, Adel-based Stine Seed Co. and Urbandale-based Triple “F” Inc. Steven Kwon, the group’s founder and director, is meeting with Afghanistan’s minister of agriculture to present the results of soybean production in Mazar-e-Sharif and how the crop be processed into nutritious drinks for the country’s women and children.

“This couples our processing knowledge with a local company in the seed business and a non-profit organization that’s trying to help people with a government that is in a big transition,” said Leroy Hanson, the president of Triple “F,” which is known worldwide for its soybean processing technology.

Earlier this year, NEI, a 1-year-old faith-based organization initiated by Korean- American Christians in Pasadena, Calif., recognized a need to introduce nutritious and affordable food products to Mazar-e-Sharif. In May, Kwon started working with Hanson to develop a high-protein soy-based nutritional supplement drink fortified with minerals that Afghan women and children were lacking.

“We developed a special soy flour that can be fortified with vitamins and minerals and be used both as a beverage and a food ingredient,” Hanson said. “We’ve processed enough product for about 2,500 samples of the fortified beverage.”

Hanson said when his company agreed to help, it also saw an opportunity for Stine, a leading seed company, to do the same.

“Our part in the program is processing technology and food development,” Hanson said. “Stine is providing the seed genetics for the beans, and we’re providing the processing technology.

Chuck Hansen, Stine’s production manager, said his company has had a good relationship with Triple “F,” so when Hanson asked Stine to become involved, it was an easy decision. As more information about NEI’s project became available, Hansen said it became clear that it was also “an educational learning opportunity and the right thing to do.”

NEI’s project originated from a desire to combat the health problems that Afghan women and children faced and which could be prevented with proper nutrition. Kwon said NEI based its information about the country’s poor conditions on a 2002 survey conducted by the United Nation’s Children’s Fund and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which reported that Afghan children under 5 years of age had a high mortality rate from health and hygiene-related problems and the nation’s women of reproductive age up to 49 suffered from malnutrition and nutritional deficiencies.

“It starts from our compassion for the women and children who are suffering from malnutrition and nutrition deficiencies,” Kwon said. “There are small things that we can do, such as iodizing their salt, to help the women avoid developing goiters.”

According to the 2002 report, many Afghan women are Vitamin-D deficient because their traditional clothing, the burka, covers most of their skin from head to toe.

A lack of Vitamin D – the sunshine vitamin – has weakened these women’s bones, said Kwon, who added, “their condition is painful to see.”

Also, the Afghan women were iodine deficient due to the scarcity of seafood in the land-locked country and their consumption of non-iodized rock salt, whereas Americans use iodized. This problem had resulted in a high occurrence of women with goiters on their necks from inflamed thyroids, Kwon said. Another issue is Afghans do not consume enough iron-rich foods, such as red meat, which are important for women during their reproductive years to ward off anemia.

In all these instances, the residents of Mazar-e-Sharif had accepted their women’s problems as a part of life, Kwon said.

“When I went over there for the first time last May, we conducted a health and nutrition seminar with community leaders,” Kwon said. “They hadn’t identified the factors that caused their wives’ ailments. They were happy to learn what was causing these problems, and number two, they were happy to working with us to address the problems. This is how NEI got started.”

NEI introduced the community to two high-protein nutritional drinks, one milk-based and one soy-based. The Afghan’s preference for the soy-based drink gave NEI the idea to grow soybeans there. Four varieties of seeds were donated by Stine Seed for the test plots and another two varieties came from the University of Southern Illinois.

“We (Stine) sent a range of maturities so they could test what would work well for them,” Hansen said. “We agreed that we would provide more seed if they are expanding the project for next year.”

In all, six acres of non-GMO soybeans were hand-planted in the high-drought Afghan soil, with successful harvesting of the crops completed in September, Kwon said. This week, NEI hopes to get approval for expanding soybean production to more parts of the country, with the long-term goal of persuading the government to build a soybean processing factory and an education center to teach nutrition principles to young adults.

“Bringing in supplements to them is not a long-term solution,” Kwon said. “Long-term is the factory and farmers growing the soybeans. The second long-term approach is educating them so that they are able to build their own health system.”

Kwon said NEI is currently “in prayer,” looking for funding sources to make the factory and school a reality. It has been granted 30 acres of land in Mazar-e-Sharif for the development and operation of a soy-processing facility and technical college.

Hanson said Triple “F” has attempted to connect NEI with resources to help it reach its goals, such as the World Food Prize Foundation and Randy Frescoln, a local U.S. Department of Agriculture representative on assignment in Afghanistan.

Karl Arnold, vice president and director of sales and marketing for the Insta-Pro International division of Triple “F,” called Frescoln, a rural development specialist, in Afghanistan.

“I spoke with Randy, and he gave me an instant commitment to helping us and our client, Mr. Kwon,” Arnold said. “He is helping Mr. Kwon frame his project in a way that would attract financing.”

Although Triple “F” has a chance to make money by constructing a soy-processing factory in Afghanistan at a future date, Hanson said that is a very small part of why his company cares about the success of the project.

“For us, this is 95 percent humanitarian,” he said. “We’re not really counting on Afghanistan as being a huge market for a long time, but we also recognize that people there have great needs, and we’re looking to help solve those needs if we can.”