Fodder shrubs for improving livestock productivity and sustainable land management in East Africa

I n East Africa, zero-grazing systems constitute the most common smallholder dairy system; farmers cut and carry feed to their confined dairy cows. Fodder legumes have been tested for more than 50 years as protein supple- ments, but with little adoption. Fodder shrubs are a low- cost, easy-to-produce protein source that could also con- tribute to sustainable land management (SLM). They are highly attractive to farmers because they require little or no cash. Moreover, they do not require farmers to take land out of use for food or other crops. But the technology is knowl- edge intensive and requires the farmer to learn new skills. The spread of fodder shrubs has been substantial, and by 2006 (about 10 years after dissemination began in earnest), they were contributing about US$3.8 million per year to farmer incomes across East Africa. Critical to the expansion were extension approaches involving (a) dissemination facilitators (specialists who promote the use of fodder shrubs among extension providers and support them with training, information, and access to seeds); (b) farmer-to- farmer dissemination; (c) large nongovernmental organiza- tion (NGO) promoters, which facilitated seed flows (seed availability was a key constraint in many areas); and (d) civil society campaigns involving a broader set of partners than just farmers and extension providers.

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