Three quarters of Zimbabwe's population live in rural areas and most depend on farming as their main source of food and income.
Chemical fertilizers are simply unaffordable for most small farmers.
Field trials have shown that inoculation of seeds with biofertilizer on average more than doubled soybean grain yields, and performed better than fields treated with 145 kg per hectare of commercial ammonium nitrate fertilizer. Yields on communal farms are now comparable to those obtained by large commercial farmers. This provides an important alternative source of protein for the farmers, as they cannot readily afford animal protein. Under natural conditions, legumes often do not find the best bacteria in the soil to fix high quantities of nitrogen needed to produce high yields. They act as a biological nitrogen fertilizer factory by converting atmospheric nitrogen to plant-usable form.