Nutrition and Education International, a nongovernmental organization, hosted a ceremony marking the shipment of equipment for a sterilized soy milk plant in Afghanistan.

Twenty-five containers were shipped from Busan to Karachi in southern Pakistan, to be transported to Afghanistan, where the plant is scheduled to be constructed and operational by September.

The venue at Daesung Food Tech Corporation headquarters in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, on March 25 was attended by representatives from World Food Program, the Afghan Embassy, the Korean Afghan Friendship Association, the Korean Soybean Society and other related organizations.

NEI, collaborating with Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the WFP, has provided soybeans to Afghanistan since 2003 to combat famine and malnutrition. Under the “Seeds of Hope” project, the organization set up infrastructure for sustainable farming of soybeans and trained more than 70,000 farmers.

In Afghanistan -- which has the world’s highest mortality rate of children under 5 and its highest maternal mortality rate -- soybean is cultivated in 22 out of 34 provinces as a vital source of nutrition and energy.

The plant will help eradicate malnutrition and improve protein consumption, producing over 40,000 pouches that contain 190 ml of soy milk each and can be stored at room temperature for long periods.

By Joel Lee (joel@heraldcorp.com)