Fodder shrubs for dairy farmers in East Africa: making extension decisions and putting them into practice

Fodder shrubs provide a valuable feed supplement for dairy cows and goats, especially during the dry season. Their clear benefits have resulted in their widespread adoption in many parts of East Africa. These woody shrubs can be managed to provide nutritious fodder from their leaves, to supplement the diets of livestock, particularly dairy cows and goats. The leaves contain much more protein than the rest of the animals’ normal diet of grasses and crop residues, and this makes them able to produce more milk. Other types of livestock can also benefit from the extra protein, but it has the biggest effect on milk production. The fodder plants are usually managed by repeated pruning so that they are kept in the form of multi-stemmed shrubs, usually grown in rows to form a hedge about m high. This is not, of course, the only possible way of managing them, but it is a system that has been thoroughly researched and tested, and has proved to be very well suited to the mixed small-scale farming system found in many parts of East Africa (mainly Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda). This book focuses specifically on this system, and on the species that are commonly used in it.

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