How to grow cow pasture for sale

Oct 08, 2020

Maintaining access to adequate quantity and quality of feed resource is crucial for milk production

Feeds contribute over 80% of the total cost of production in smallholder dairy cattle systems. However, if a farmer grows their own feeds, such expenses drop. All you need is land.

For example, an acre produces pasture that can feed a cow and her calf. Alternatively, investors can grow the grass and then sell it.

An acre of pasture can give the investor as much as sh3m-5m, with an investment of about sh1.5m. Pasture is the cheapest and main feed resource for dairy cattle. Pasture management is, therefore, key to the effectiveness of the smallholder dairy production system.

Planning ahead is critical to ensure there is always adequate feed available for the animals. It is important to think commercially in order to know the maximum forage production potential of your farm-holding and the potential amount of off-farm forage available to your herd in a given year.

Maintaining access to adequate quantity and quality of feed resource is crucial for milk production. This enables the farmer to determine the maximum number of animals he/she can support. The amount of forage, whether obtained from within or outside the farm, is actually the single most important feed resource that determines the number of cows that can be sustained in the unit.

The major types of feeds used in smallholder dairy systems include natural pasture, improved planted pastures, crop residues (maize stover, banana peels, sweet potato vines), conserved forages (hay, silage and haylage), agro-industrial by products (concentrates, homemade mineral supplements, brewer's mash) and water.

Natural pastures 

Natural pastures consist of grasses, such as local napier grass (pennisetum purpureum), Guinea grass (panicum maximum), and, grasses/legumes harvested from public land (swamps, roadsides etc).

The advantages of natural pastures are they are tolerant to drought, do not require inputs, such as fertilisers, irrigation, weeding and management and they are useful in marginal areas (of low rainfall).

They are more genetically and morphologically diverse than most introduced pasture species, with many ecotypes occurring locally and regionally. The limitations to utilisation of natural pastures is low nutritive value, seasonality, low biomass yield and mixing with poisonous weeds.

Improved planted pastures

If justified by the breed of the cow, milk price and rainfall pattern, the quantity and quality of feed available to dairy cattle can be improved substantially by establishing improved forages, such as fodder trees, forage grasses and legumes. The feeding value of cultivated forages is far superior to that of native pastures.

Improved pastures comprise of sown pasture grasses, forage legumes and multi-purpose fodder trees and shrubs. Well managed pastures will:

• Produce more forage and more livestock products than poorly managed pastures.

•Improve the condition of any ecologically sensitive areas.

•Reduce runoff and improve rainfall infiltration.

• Reduce the delivery of contaminants, such as eroded soil, manure and pathogens to surface waters, while contributing to proper nutrient management •Improve habitat for game birds and other wildlife species.

Compiled by Joshua Kato (editor, Harvest Money) and Dr Jolly Kabirizi (livestock nutritionist consultant)

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