A grass native to Africa could transform the continent’s dairy yields. Here’s how

The cows saved by small-scale farmers in Africa are notoriously unproductive. The common dairy cow, for instance, produces about 540 litres of milk per lactation. In contrast, dairy cows in North America that belong to business or intensive farmers can produce as much as 10,479 litres of milk per lactation.

One of many essential variations between the 2 animals lies within the high quality of their feeds and forage. Merely put, the extra nutritious cows’ diets are, the extra and higher high quality milk they produce. And small-scale farms, of which there are about 33 million in Africa, contributing as much as 70 per cent of the continent’s meals provide, normally can not afford extra nutritious feed.

Brachiaria — the genus title of Urochloa — consists of about 100 documented species of grass of which seven species used as fodder vegetation are of African origin. This grass could maintain the important thing to enhancing milk yields from cows saved by small-scale farmers. Why is that this an necessary purpose?

First, it’ll assist to fulfill rising demand for animal-sourced meals — like cow milk — because the continent turns into extra urbanised and its inhabitants grows. Second, it’ll present an financial boon to particular person farmers and communities extra broadly. Lastly, there’s potential for Brachiaria itself to change into a cash maker. Native seed merchants will profit if the grass seed is commercialised.

Brachiaria has already confirmed its price in some components of the world. It has been instrumental to the meat business’s success within the tropical Americas. Brazil alone now has some 99 million hectares of land devoted to Brachiaria grass.

The seed varieties at the moment utilized in African agriculture are all imported, most from South America and South East Asia. Lengthy distance transportation and tariffs make these seeds costly. It could be very best to develop a high quality, local weather resilient Brachiaria seed manufacturing system on the continent. However the place?

We consider the reply lies in Cameroon. Farmers there have lengthy planted Brachiaria seeds, however no one had ever examined their high quality. Our analysis crammed this hole. Although the general seed high quality was poor, we’ve discovered that improved cultivation practices can handle this problem. Now we’re exhausting at work to show Cameroon into Africa’s Brachiaria seed hub.

A high quality grass

Brachiaria’s forage high quality was recognised by scientists within the Fifties. It has a excessive biomass yield potential and is adaptable to low-fertility soil. South American farmers, particularly in Brazil, began utilizing Brachiaria on a large-scale within the early Seventies and it’s recognised as being key to the area’s booming beef business.

In Africa, nonetheless, curiosity within the grass grew extra slowly. It was not till the early 2000s, when the continent started to really feel the consequences of inhabitants development and urbanisation that larger demand for animal-sourced meals piqued renewed curiosity in methods to enhance agricultural yields.

As a plant scientist based mostly on the Worldwide Livestock Analysis Institute, I’ve researched Brachiaria grass since 2013. By means of varied partnerships, colleagues and I’ve labored on a climate-smart Brachiaria programme to check the varieties already developed in Australia and South America in varied African contexts. They carried out nicely independently, however the subsequent step was to combine them into the combined crop-livestock methods typical of the continent.

Farmers responded enthusiastically to the grass: it considerably elevated milk manufacturing by as much as 40 per cent and prompted substantial physique weight achieve in livestock, by as a lot as 50 per cent in heifers. Its recognition grew as main journals and media shops publicised its advantages. Nevertheless, the seeds that made all this analysis attainable have been nonetheless unavailable on the continent. We needed to import them, an arduous and expensive course of due to rules and distance. So we knew that, going ahead, we had to take a look at native seed manufacturing.

It was additionally essential to seek out the very best nation for the duty at hand. Whereas our work in Kenya and Rwanda was promising, it wasn’t as profitable as we might have hoped, presumably because of these international locations’ proximity to the equator; the truth that night time and day are of equal size affected varied phases of seed growth in species that favour longer days.

Why Cameroon?

Cameroon is commonly known as “Africa in miniature”. It represents the continent’s main climatic zones, creating an ideal place for seed analysis.

Throughout a go to to Cameroon, I famous that farmers had been rising Brachiaria grass for over 50 years and concurrently producing the seed for home makes use of.

In addition they promote surplus seed to neighbours, and seed merchants from the Central African Republic and Nigeria. Nevertheless, the standard of seeds produced in Cameroon was not established till our research.

There are ten areas in Cameroon; Brachiaria grass is often grown in 5. Our workforce collected seeds from these 5 areas to find out their high quality: trueness to selection, germination proportion, purity, vigour and look. The standard was typically too low to fulfill worldwide requirements, however with improved cultivation practices this hurdle may be overcome.

Manufacturing hub

We’re at the moment engaged in actions that will make Cameroon Africa’s Brachiaria seed manufacturing hub. Attaining this could considerably enhance seed availability to farmers, cut back the price of the seeds and facilitate the scaling of Brachiaria grass manufacturing throughout the continent.

To this finish, my analysis workforce at Worldwide Livestock Analysis Institute (ILRI) and researchers from the Institute for Agricultural Analysis and Growth in Cameroon have been working to doc the standard of Brachiaria seeds produced within the nation’s totally different areas of Cameroon. We’re additionally fine-tuning agronomic practices to enhance seed high quality, in addition to coaching native farmers on improved agricultural practices for the manufacturing of high quality Brachiaria seeds.

We hope that this partnership between the 2 institutes will develop Cameroon into the continent’s Brachiaria seed manufacturing hub within the subsequent three to 5 years. It will have quite a few financial advantages and make high quality seeds obtainable within the African continent at a a lot lower cost.

Mwihaki Mundia, BecA—ILRI Hub as Communications Officer, contributed to this text.

Sita Ghimire, Principal Scientist – Plant Pathology, Biosciences jap and central Africa-Worldwide Livestock Analysis Institute Hub

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