Can the greatest constraint to improving the productivity of livestock in sub-Saharan Africa – the low quality and quantity of feed resources – be overcome? Could new fast-growing leguminous trees or shrubs lessen farmers’ feed problems and reduce their expenditure on costly protein supplements? How should they be introduced and evaluated?

Research from the Overseas Development Institute’s Agricultural Research and Extension Network (AgREN) reports on a long-term participatory project to field-test fodder shrubs in the Embu area of the Kenyan highlands. It warns that it is not just a matter of the transfer of knowledge and germplasm: partnerships must be built, appropriate practices developed, communities mobilised and farmers’ groups involved in all aspects of the trial and evaluation.

About 90 per cent of local households keep a few cows or goats on zero or minimum grazing systems. Milk is used for domestic consumption and sale. Almost half of the cow-owning households buy commercial dairy meal to supplement locally available grass, crop residues and indigenous fodder crops. Farmers complain about the price of dairy meal, difficulties in transporting it to their homesteads and the low market price of milk.

Demand for new fodder crops has been high. In farmer-designed trials, they opted for integrating shrubs into existing cropping systems rather than planting trees in pure stand fodder banks. By planting shrubs as hedges around their compounds, they continue a traditional practice while replacing unproductive, non-browse species. Planting along contour bunds and terrace edges on sloping land offers protection against erosion.

Researchers found that:

• By close planting, the average farm in the Embu area can easily accommodate the 500 shrubs needed to provide the approximately six kilograms of fresh leaves (equivalent to 2 kilograms dried leaves) required daily to feed a dairy cow.
• The leaves can be used either as a substitute for dairy meal or as a supplement: a household can earn about $US 100 in the first year after establishing shrubs.
• One kilogram of dried calliandra leaves has about the same amount of digestible protein as a kilogram of dairy meal.
• Fodder shrubs are a knowledge-intensive practice and require training and facilitation, especially at the time of establishing a nursery as well as nine months later at the time of the first harvest.

Key policy implications emerging from the study are:

• New mechanisms are needed to enable government extension services, NGOs and the private sector to incorporate successful new practices and to learn from localised projects.
• Innovative extension approaches are needed to enable farmers’ groups, on their own, to access information on new practices.
• Assisting farmers to adopt new cost-saving technologies to produce a commodity that has serious marketing constraints is problematic – innovations will only achieve maximum impact if milk marketing systems are improved.
• More must be done to scale-up the programme across eastern Africa – so far only 4 per cent of Kenya’s 625 000 dairy farmers have planted fodder shrubs.
• Greater diversification of fodder shrubs is needed to reduce the risk of pest and disease attacks and to improve feed quality.
• Governments and development partners must focus on assisting farmers’ groups to mobilise and help them to get information on improved practices from fellow farmers in other villages.

Source(s):
‘The adoption and dissemination of fodder shrubs in central Kenya’, AgREN Paper No 131, Overseas Development Institute, by Steven Franzel, Charles Wambugu and Paul Tuwei, July 2003 Full document.

Funded by: Department for International Development, UK

id21 Research Highlight: 20 November 2003

Further Information:
Steven Franzel and Charles Wambugu
World Agroforestry Centre
PO Box 30677
Nairobi
Kenya

Tel: +254 2 524000
Contact the contributor: s.franzel@cgiar.org

Contact the contributor: c.wambugu@cgiar.org

World Agroforestry Centre

Overseas Development Institute
111 Westminster Bridge Road
London SE1 7JD
UK

Tel: +44 (0)20 7922 0300
Fax: +44 (0)20 7922 0399
Contact the contributor: publications@odi.org.uk

Overseas Development Institute, UK

Other related links:
'Agricultural Knowledge and Information Systems for Rural Development' from the World Bank'

Kenya Agricultural Research Institute

Global Forum on Agricultural Research

Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR)

The International Dairy Federation